THE TRUE BEAUTY

 

THE TRUE BEAUTY

            “THE TRUE BEAUTY” is the title of a very short poem written by the English poet Thomas  Carew (1595 –22 March 1640). He was born in West Wickham, United Kingdom, and died in London.  By occupation, he  was  one of the four cavalier poets, the remaining three being Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace and Sir John Suckling  who were courtiers.   They all supported King Charles 1 during the English Civil War (1642-1651). The king himself took interest in fine arts and supported poets. His opponents were called Roundheads who supported Parliament.

                Cavalier poets celebrated “beauty, love, nature, sensuality, drinking, good fellowship, honour and social life.” For them each day of life was most important, as if it was the last day , and had to be enjoyed as much as possible.

                     Thomas Carew’s  poem reads as follows:

 THE TRUE BEAUTY

He that loves a rosy cheek

Or a coral lip admires

Or from star-like eyes doth seek

Fuel to maintain his fires;

As old Time makes these decay,

So his flames must waste away.

 

But a smooth and steadfast mind,

Gentle thoughts and calm desires,

Hearts with equal love combined,

Kindle never-dying fires-----

Where these are not, I despise

Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.

 

                                   *********

G. R. Kanwal

30.06.2023

 

A CHRISTIAN PRAYER

 

                       A CHRISTIAN PRAYER          

Given below is a Christian prayer which is just like other prayers carried in various sacred books of the world. It is quoted by Dr. Bhagavan Das in his book The Essential Unity of All Religions published in 1936.

According to several biographical sources Dr. Bhagavan Das was an Indian Theosophist and a distinguished public figure. He worked for some time in the Central Legislative Assembly of British India. He was, however, an advocate of Indian freedom from British rule. He was the  founder of  Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith. As an eminent scholar, he had received many educational and literary degrees. The Government of India awarded him Bharat Ratna in 1958 for his contributions to education, philosophy and social reform. Born in Benares on 12 January 1869, he passed away on 18 September 1958.

The Christian Prayer mentioned above reads as follows:

     “Lead me, O Lord, in Thy righteousness. Make Thy Way straight before my face. Cleanse Thou me from secret faults. Keep back Thy servant from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

         Search me, O God!, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me; and lead me in the Way Everlasting.

          Show me Thy Ways , O Lord ! Teach me Thy Paths ; and lead me in Thy Truth; Thou art the God of my Salvation. Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law. Quicken Thou me according to Thy Word. Remove from me the way of lying. (Source: Bible; Old Testament; Psalms.)”

                                                            *******

G.R.Kanwal

29. 6. 2023

              

REMEMBER

 

                REMEMBER

In a great poem, which is destined to become classic, the English poet  James Falconer Kirkup (1918-2009) advises us to remember that “NO MEN ARE FOREIGN”, by which he means that all human beings are alike.  It is another matter they live in different countries, follow  different  religions, speak different languages and wear different uniforms. Despite these differences, they are our brothers. The land they walk upon is earth like our own and their harvests are subject to the same effects of air, water and sunshine as ours . They ,too, are fed by peaceful harvests and starved by war’s long winter. Physically , too, they resemble us, work like us and win hearts by love.

                 With these similarities, says Kirkup, there should be absolutely no reason for disunity and hate among men of different lands. He adds:

“Let us remember, whenever we are told

                          To hate our brothers, it is ourselves

                           That we shall dispossess, betray. Condemn.

                    

                     Also remember: “We who take arms against each other, it is the human earth we defile.  Our hells of fire and dust outrage the innocence of air that is everywhere our own.”

 

                        Kirkup concludes his poem with the message: “No Men Are Foreign, And No Countries Strange.”  

                      

                                                                        ********

G.R.Kanwal

28.6.2023                   

 

 

 

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES

 

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES

The other day I had a call from a friend who is now more than 100 and a  few months old. He is  a retired army officer and also an Urdu poet of some merit and that is how he came into contact with us being a member of our circle of poets. It was long ago.  The circle is still  alive and meeting on a Sunday every month but the friend concerned has ceased to participate in its programmes.  His other- day call had a special purpose and that was he wanted to see the faces of old familiar poets  in the  type of those monthly meets in which he used to participate . I promised to fulfil his request as soon as possible and in the best possible manner.

                This incident which has deep sychological significance of human unions and separations, especially , during the periods of childhood and boyhood , reminded me of the best-known poem of the English poet Charles Lamb (1775-1834).

                Lamb was not a regular poet  He was a great essayist. He wrote only three or four poems, the one mentioned here is very famous among the young and the old.

                Here is the full text of the poem:

The Old Familiar Faces

I have had playmates. I have had companions

In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

 

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,

Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

 

I loved a love once, fairest among women:

Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her ---

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

 

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man;

Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;

Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

 

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood,

Earth seem’d a desert I was bound to traverse,

Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

 

Friend of my bosom, though more than a brother,

Why wert not though born in my father’s dwelling

?

So might we talk of the old familiar faces.

 

How some they have died , and some they have left me,

And some are taken from me; all are departed;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

 

G.R.Kanwal                                                         *******

22^nd June 2023  

 

 

IN PRAISE OF MOTHERS

1.Children are  what the mothers are; no fondest father’s fondest care can so fashion the infant’s heart , or so shape the life. 4). English writer, Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864).

2.Children, look in those eyes. Listen to that dear voice, notice the feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you by that gentle hand! Make much of it while you have that most precious of all good gifts, a loving mother.

Read the unfathomable love of those eyes; the kind anxiety of that tone and look, however slight your pain. 

In after life you may have friends, fond, dear friends, but never will you have again the in-expressible love and gentleness lavished upon you, which none but a mother bestows.  English author and historian Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59).  

3. The babe at first feeds upon the mother’s bosom, but is always on her heart, American clergy, H.W. Beecher (1813-87).

4.The future of society is in the hands of the mothers. If the world was lost through woman, she alone can save it.   French historian, Louis de Beaufort (died 1795).

5. God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers. Jewish saying.

MOTHER’S DAY                                                          ……….

14^th May 2023                                                                        G.R.Kanwal

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SHAKESPEARE SAID

 

SHAKESPEARE SAID

British poet-playwright was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom, on 23 April 1564 and is believed to have died on 23 April itself in 1616. Known as world’s greatest literary genius, ‘not for an age, but for  all time ’. he had only a smarting of education at Stratford Grammar School. He married , at the age of eighteen,  Anne Hathaway, a young woman of twenty-six.   

                English poet, Matthew Arnold (1822-88) paid his tribute to Shakespeare in the following sonnet:

                Others abide our question . Thou are free.

                We ask and ask ------- Thou smilest and art still,

                Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,

Who  to the stars uncrown his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footstep in the sea,

Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,

Spares but the cloudy border of his base

To the foil’d searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,

Self-schooled, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure,

Didst tread on earth unguess’d at.---Better so !

All pains the immortal spirit must endure,

All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,

Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.

               

Today, 23 April 2023 , is Shakespeare’s birthday. A lot of what he said in his numerous plays and sonnets and a few poems is full of eternally quotable lines;  only a handful of them are given here

 for your enlightenment.

 

       As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods;

They kill us for their sports. (King Lear).

                                …….

                Cowards die many times before their deaths;

                The valiant never taste of death but once. (Julius Caesar).

 

                                                …….

                The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

                ‘T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes

                The throned monarch better than his crown;

                His sceptre shows the force of  temporal power,

                The attribute to awe and majesty,

                Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings:

                But mercy is above this sceptred sway,

                It is enthroned in the hearts of kings.

                It is an attribute to God himself,

                An earthly power doth then show likest God’s

When mercy seasons justice.     (Merchant of Venice)

                                ……….

 

The web of our life is of mingled yarn. Good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not : and our crimes would despair if they not cherished by our virtues. (All’s Well That Ends Well).

                                                ……

 

What a piece of work is a man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in form and moving how express and admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in apprehension how like god ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals ! (Hamlet ).

 

                                             …..

                                               

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is

To have a thankless child. (King Lear) 

 

                                                                *******

23 April 2023                                                                                                                      G.R.Kanwal                                                                                                                        

 

 

                                ……

               

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROPHET MOHAMMAD

 

PROPHET MOHAMMAD

 

Recently I happed to lay my hands on an old book “THE LIFE OF MOHAMMAD” written, by Sir William Muir and printed in 1923 by JOHN GRANT: EDINBURGH .  It was first published in 1861.  The page which most attracted me at the moment created in me the innocent and sacred desire to share it with you in a spirit of gratitude both to the author and the publisher.

The selected part of the intended page reads as follows:

“A remarkable feature was the urbanity and consideration with which Mohammad treated even the most insignificant of his followers. Modesty and kindliness, patience, self-affections and generosity , pervaded his conduct, and riveted the affections of all around him. He disliked to say No. If unable to answer a petitioner in the affirmative, he preferred silence. ‘He was  more bashful’ says A’isha ‘than a veiled virgin; and if anything displeased him , it was rather from his face, than by his words, that we discovered it; he never smote any one but in the service of the Lord, not even a woman or servant.’ He was not  known ever to refuse an invitation to the house even of the meanest, nor to decline a preferred present however small. When seated by a friend, he did not haughtily advance his knees towards him. He possessed the rare faculty of making each individual in a company think that he was the favoured guest. If he met any one rejoicing at success he would seize him eagerly by the hand. With the bereaved and afflicted he sympathised tenderly. Gentle and unbending towards little children, he would not disdain to accost a group of them at play, with the salutation of peace. He shared his food, even in times of scarcity, with others; and was sedulously solicitous for the personal comfort of every one about him. A kindly and benevolent disposition pervades all these illustrations of his character.”

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21^st April 2023                                                                                                    G.R.Kanwal