GREAT LINES FROM GREAT POEMS (PART SIX)

 

                GREAT LINES FROM GREAT POEMS

                                             (PART SIX)

1.Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

 Content to breathe his native air

In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire;

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

In winter fire.-----Alexander Pope.

 

2. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing. -------William Shakespeare.

 

3. “My name is Ozymandias , king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away,------Percy Bysshe Shelley.    

 

4. It seems to me I’d like to go

Where bells ne’er ring or whistles blow;

Where clocks ne’er strike and gongs ne’er sound

But where there’s stillness all around. -----Nixon Waterman.

 

5. The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

The Sea that; bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune:

It moves us not.-----William Wordsworth

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Compiler: G.R.Kanwal

22 October 2025

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GREAT LINES FROM GREAT POEMS (PART FIVE)

 

                GREAT LINES FROM GREAT POEMS

                                                          (PART FIVE)

1.     Rise! for the day is passing,

And you lie dreaming on;

The others have buckled their armor,

And forth to the fight are gone:

A place in the ranks awaits you,

Each man has some part to play;

The Past and Future are nothing,

In the face of the stern today.-----A. A. Procter.

 

2.     They are slaves who fear to speak,

For the fallen and the weak;

They are slaves who will not choose,

Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,

Rather than in silence  shrink,

From the truth they needs must think;

They are slaves who dare not be,

In the right with two or three.….. James Russell Lowell.

 

3.     Ah, love, let us be true

To one another ! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.-----Matthew Arnold.

 

4.     A book of Verses underneath the Bough,

A Jug of wine, a Loaf of Bread----and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness----

Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!----Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam,                                                                                     Translated by Edward Fitzgerald.  

5.     I think I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.----Joyce Kilmer

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 Compiler: G. R. Kanwal

21^st October 2025

GREAT LINES FROM GREAT POEMS (PART FOUR)

 

GREAT LINES FROM GREAT POEMS

                           (PART FOUR)         

                                   

1. Within his ample volume lies

The  mystery of mysteries.

Happiest they of human race

To whom their God has given grace

To read, to fear, to hope to pray,

To lift the latch, to force the way;

But better had they ne’er been born

That read to doubt or read to scorn.----Sir Walter Scott.

2. Does the Road wind up-hill all the way?

Yes, to the very end.

Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?

From  morn to night, my friend…..

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?

 Of labour you shall find the sum.

Will there be beds for me and all who seek?

Yea, beds for all who come. -----Christina Georgina Rosssetti.

 

3. Sleep sweet within the quiet room,

O thou, whoe’er thou art,

And let no mournful yesterdays

Disturb thy peaceful heart.-----Ellen M. Huntington Gates.

 

4. Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:

Fully many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.------Thomas Gray

 

5. When some great sorrow, like a mighty river,

Flows through your life with peace-destroying power,

And dearest things are swept from right forever,

Say to your heart each trying hour:

“This, too, shall pass away.”-------Lanta Wilson Smith.

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Compiler: G. R. Kanwal

20^th October 2025

 

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GREAT LINES FROM GREAT POEMS (PART 3 )

 

                                GREAT LINES FROM GREAT POEMS

                                                (PART 3 )

1.Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee,

E’en though it be a cross

That raiseth me;

Still all my song would be,

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee.------Sarah F.Adams.

 

2. All things bright and beautiful

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all. -----Cecil Frances Alexander

 

3. Life! I know not what  thou art,

But know that thou and I must part;

And when, or how, or where we met

I own to me’s a secret yet.

Life! We’ve been long together,

Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;

‘Tis hard to part when friends are dear----

Perhaps ‘twill cost a sigh, a tear;

Then steal away, give little warning,

Choose thine own time;

Say not good night----but in some brighter clime

BId me good morning.----Annna  Laetitia Barbauld.

 

4. Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us

O’er the world’s tempestuous sea;

Guard us, guide us, keep us, feed us,

For we have no help but thee;

Yet possessing every blessing;

If our God our Father be. -----James Edmeston

 

5. If I have wounded any soul today,

If I have caused one foot to go astray,

If I have walked in my own willful way---

Good Lord, forgive! …….

 

Forgive the sins I have confessed to Thee,

Forgive the secret sins I do not see,

That which I know not, Father, teach Thou me---

Help me to live. ------Charles H. Gabriel

 

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Compiler: G. R. Kanwal

19^th October 2025  

 

 

 

 

LINE FROM GREAT POMS (PART TWO)

 

LINE FROM GREAT POMS

              (PART  TWO)

               

1.      I slept and dreamt that life was Beauty

I woke and found that life was Duty:

Was then the dream a shadowy lie?

Toil on, sad heart, courageously,

And thou shalt find thy dream to be

A noonday light and truth to thee.----Ellen S. Hooper.

 

2.     A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.----John Keats.

 

3.     Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!---

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.-----Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

 

4.     I want to travel the common road

With the great crowd surging by,

Where there’s many a laugh and many a load,

And many a smile and sigh…..

 

I want to laugh with the common man

Wherever he chance to be,

I want to aid him when I can

Whenever there’s need of me.------Silas H. Perkins.

 

5.     There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,

Can circumvent or hinder or control

The firm resolve of a determined soul.

Gifts count for nothing ; will alone is great;

All things give way before it, soon or late.-----Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

 

6.     He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool, shun him;

He who knows, and knows that he knows, is asleep, wake him;

He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise, follow him….Persian Proverb.

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Compiler: G. R. Kanwal

18^th October 2025

                                                        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GREAT LINES FROM GREAT POEMS

 

                GREAT LINES FROM GREAT POEMS

                                      (PART ONE)             

1.Remember, no men are strange, no countries foreign,

Beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes

Like ours; the land our brothers walk upon

Is earth like this, in which we all shall lie. ---James Kirkup.

 

2. Come live with me and be my love,

And  we will all the pleasures prove

That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields. ----Christopher Marlowe.

 

3. Make new friends, but keep the old;

Those are silver, these are gold.

New-made friendships, like new wine,

Age will mellow and refine.----Joseph Parry.

 

4. All paths lead to you

 Where e’er I stray,

You are the evening star

At the end of the day.----Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff.

 

5. The rain is raining all around,

It falls on field and tree,

It rains on the umbrellas here,

And on the ships at sea.-----Robert Louis Stevenson.

 

6. Be Strong!

We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;

We have hard work to do and loads to lift;

Shun not the struggle --- face it; ‘tis God’s gift.----Maltbie Davenport  Babcock

 

 7. I live for those who love me,

Whose hearts are kind and true;

For the Heaven that smiles above me,

And awaits my spirit too;

For all human ties that bind me,

For the task by God assigned me,

For the bright hopes yet to find me,

And the good that I can do.----George Linnaeus Banks.

 

8. There are loyal hearts, there are spirits brave,

There are souls that are pure and true;

Then give to the world the best you have,

And the best will come back to you.-----Mary Ainge De Vere.

 

9. Little drops of water,

Little grains of sand,

Make the mighty ocean

And the pleasant land.

Thus the little minutes,

Humble though they be,

Make the mighty ages

Of eternity.----Julia A. Fletcher

 

10. Look up and not down.

Look forward and not back.

Look out and not in.

Lend a hand.----Edward Everett Hale.

 

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Compiler: G .R. Kanwal

17^th October 2025

 

LITTLE HINGS ARE NOT LITTLE

 

LITTLE HINGS ARE NOT LITTLE

            The English playwright Ben Jonson  (1572-1637) says in his poem The Noble Nature :

            It is not growing like a tree

            In bulk, doth make man better be,

            Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

            To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:

                        A lily of a day

                        Is fairer far in May,

            Although it fall and die that night,---

            It was the plant and flower of Light.

In small proportions we just beauties see,

And in short measures life may perfect be.

           

             The central idea of the poem is that quality is more important than quantity. A small  rose is prettier than a big tree with so many branches attached. And a little sparrow flying upward towards the sky is lovelier than a huge elephant standing idle.

 

               Look at a mosquito. Its life is short but active. Moreover, it is musical. It gives out an alarming sound before it stings you.

 

               Look at the following quotes:

 

*He that despiseth small things, shall fall by little and little.---Ecclesiasticus, Hebrew Biblical saying.

 

**Most of the critical things in life, which become the starting points of human destiny, are little things.---R. Smith, English clergy (1818-95).

 

***The power of little things has so often been noted that we accept it as an axiom, and yet fail to see, in each beginning, the possibility of great events.---Anonymous.

 

****Do little things now; so shall big things come to thee by and by asking to be done. ----Persian Proverb.

 

*****Little things are great to little men.-----Oliver Goldsmith , Irish  poet, dramatist, and novelist (1728-74).

              

            Finally, this meaningful quote: Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.

 

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G.R.Kanwal

16 October 2025