SCATTERED THOUGHTS

 

          SCATTERED THOUGHTS       

*Answer To A Child’s Question.

 

Do you ask what the birds say? The sparrow the dove,

The linnet and thrush say, “I love and I love!”

In the winter they’re silent ----the wind is so strong;

What it says, I don’t know, but it sings a loud song.

But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny, warm weather,

And singing, and loving ---all come back together.

But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love,

The green fields below him, the blue sky above,

That he sings, and he sings; for ever sings he-----

“I love my Love, my Love loves me!”

 

Note: The author of this poem is the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge

(1772-1834). The concluding line is the answer to the child’s question. “ I love my Love(mistress) , my Love loves me, which  means love is a two-sided mutual affair.

 

*Man’s love is of man’s life; it is woman’s whole existence. ------The English poet George Gordon  Lord Byron (1778-1824).

 

Note:  “Love is about purposeful, conscious experience, embracing emotions, growth, and connection (thriving, while existence is mere the state of being real or surviving.

 

*To be with trees and plants is beautiful  because they go on growing, they

become an impetus, an inspiration, and the whole energy is flowing upwards with the growth, You cannot remain low, you have to go high. If you are alert, then farming can turn you on as no drug can ever do.-------Indian mystic Acharya Rajneesh popularly known as OSHO (1931-1990).  

 

Note: OSHO is a progressive mystic. His thoughts are lofty. He discards stagnant pools and welcomes running rivers. Up, not down, is his clarion call.    

                                                            ********

G.R.Kanwal

20 January 2026

 

 

The Lotos-eaters

 

The Lotos-eaters

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,

"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."

In the afternoon they came unto a land

In which it seemed always afternoon.

All round the coast the languid air did swoon,

Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.

Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;

And like a downward smoke, the slender stream

Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

 

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,

Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;

And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,

Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.

They saw the gleaming river seaward flow

From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,

Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,

Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops,

Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.

 

The charmed sunset linger'd low adown

In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale

Was seen far inland, and the yellow down

Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale

And meadow, set with slender galingale;

A land where all things always seem'd the same!

And round about the keel with faces pale,

Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,

The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

 

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,

Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave

To each, but whoso did receive of them,

And taste, to him the gushing of the wave

Far far away did seem to mourn and rave

On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,

His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;

And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,

And music in his ears his beating heart did make.

 

They sat them down upon the yellow sand,

Between the sun and moon upon the shore;

And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,

Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore

Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,

Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.

Then some one said, "We will return no more";

And all at once they sang, "Our island home

Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."

 

CHORIC SONG

I

There is sweet music here that softer falls

Than petals from blown roses on the grass,

Or night-dews on still waters between walls

Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;

Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,

Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;

Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.

Here are cool mosses deep,

And thro' the moss the ivies creep,

And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,

And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep."

 

II

Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness,

And utterly consumed with sharp distress,

While all things else have rest from weariness?

All things have rest: why should we toil alone,

We only toil, who are the first of things,

And make perpetual moan,

Still from one sorrow to another thrown:

Nor ever fold our wings,

And cease from wanderings,

Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;

Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,

"There is no joy but calm!"

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?

 

III

Lo! in the middle of the wood,

The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud

With winds upon the branch, and there

Grows green and broad, and takes no care,

Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon

Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow

Falls, and floats adown the air.

Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,

The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,

Drops in a silent autumn night.

All its allotted length of days

The flower ripens in its place,

Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,

Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.

 

IV

Hateful is the dark-blue sky,

Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.

Death is the end of life; ah, why

Should life all labour be?

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,

And in the little while our lips are dumb .

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast.

And in a little while our lips are dumb.

Let us alone. What is that will last?

All things are taken from us , and become

Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.

Let us alone. What pleasure can we have

To war with evil ? Is there any peace

In ever climbing up the climbing wave?

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave

In silence ripen, fall and cease.

Give us long rest or death, dark death , or

dreamful ease.

 

 

V

How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,

With half-shut eyes ever to seem

Falling asleep in a half-dream!

To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,

Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;

To hear each other's whisper'd speech;

Eating the Lotos day by day,

To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,

And tender curving lines of creamy spray;

To lend our hearts and spirits wholly

To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;

To muse and brood and live again in memory,

With those old faces of our infancy

Heap'd over with a mound of grass,

Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!

 

VI

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,

And dear the last embraces of our wives

And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change:

For surely now our household hearths are cold,

Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:

And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.

Or else the island princes over-bold

Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings

Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,

And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.

Is there confusion in the little isle?

Let what is broken so remain.

The Gods are hard to reconcile:

'Tis hard to settle order once again.

There is confusion worse than death,

Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,

Long labour unto aged breath,

Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars

And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.

 

VII

But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,

How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)

With half-dropt eyelid still,

Beneath a heaven dark and holy,

To watch the long bright river drawing slowly

His waters from the purple hill—

To hear the dewy echoes calling

From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine—

To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling

Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine!

Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,

Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine.

 

VIII

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:

The Lotos blows by every winding creek:

All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:

Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone

Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.

We have had enough of action, and of motion we,

Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free,

Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.

Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,

In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined

On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.

For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd

Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd

Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:

Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,

Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,

Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.

But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song

Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,

Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;

Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,

Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,

Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;

Till they perish and they suffer—some, 'tis whisper'd—down in hell

Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,

Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore

Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;

O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

 

                        This long poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-92) “explores the temptation to escape lif’s hardships through fantasy and lethargy, questioning the value of heroic striving when compared to perpetual rest.”

    The Lotos-eaters have travelled a lot, batted a lot, and have consequently exhausted themselves. So if the say “We will roam no more”, they are physically as also mentally justified. Excess of everything is bad. Moreover, war has its own negative points. So war can be given up at any time and the warriors can morally justify their decision to give up their participation in prolonged wars

 

    Look at their great arguments included in stanza  of the Choric Song:

 

Should life all labour be?

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,

And in a little while our lips are dumb.

Let us alone. What is it that will last?

All things are taken from us, and become

Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.

Let us alone. What pleasure can we have

To war with evil? Is there any peace

In ever climbing up the climbing wave?

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave

In silence; ripen, fall and cease:

Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

 

                                                *******

G.R.Kanwal

19 January 2026

                                               

SOME LOVE QUOTES

 

            SOME LOVE QUOTES

            “Love” is affection, fondness, care, concern, attachment, regard, warmth, intimacy, devotion, adoration, passion, ardour, desire, lust, yearning, infatuation, adulation and liking ,etc.

            Given below are a few quotes:

*There comes a time when the souls of human beings, women more even than men, begin to faint for the atmosphere of the affections they are made to breathe.----O. W. Holmes (1809-94 ) American poet and author.

*Love one human being purely and warmly, and you will love all, The heart in this heaven, like the sun in its course, sees nothing, from the dewdrop to the ocean, but a mirror which it brightens and warms, and fills. ---Jean Paul Richter, German humanist (1763-1826).

*The plainest man that can convince a woman that he is really in love with her, has done more to make her in love with him than the handsomest man, if he can produce no such conviction. For the love of woman is a shoot not a seed, and flourishes most vigorously only when ingrafted on that love which is rooted in the breast of another.----English clergy Caleb C. Colton (1780-1832).

*There is nothing holier in this life of ours than the first consciousness of love ---the first fluttering of the silken wings –the first rising sound and breath of that wind which is so soon to sweep through the soul, to purify or to destroy. ----American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82).

* Love …is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same. ---Helen Keller, American blind author 1880-1968.

                                                            ******

G.R.Kanwal

18 January 2026

 

 

MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS

 

 

                                                MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS

            Thoughts are mental treasures of various types. They are everybody’s possession. Even very small children have unexpressed thoughts. But adults are full of thoughts both silent and spoken. These thoughts are related to life’s  innumerable activities. They may be abstract, concrete, vague, solid, critical, creative, analytical, reflective, emotional, useful, foolish, wise, relevant,  abstract, practical,  etc.

            According to a relevant quote : thoughts are the mental processes of our mind, expressing ideas, beliefs, judgments and interpretations , shaped by experience and culture. You can read or listen to  thoughts of great minds on anything and every subject .

            Here are a few miscellaneous thoughts that can  enrich and enlighten our minds.

*The acts of this life are the destiny of the next.---Eastern Proverb.

 

*Remember that what you believe will depend very much what you are. ---Noah Porter.

 

*Certainly, this is a duty ---not a sin----. Cleanliness is, indeed next to Godliness, ----John Wesley.

 

*Much more gracious and profitable is doctrine by example, than by rule. -----Spenser.

 

*To be a gentleman is to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and possessing all those qualities to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner. ----English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray.

 

*He is great enough that is his own master.----Bishop Hall.

 

*Idleness is the key of beggary, and the root of all evil. ----Charles Haddon Spurgeon, English clergy.

*Life does not count by years. Some suffer a lifetime in a day, and so grow old between the rising and the setting of the sun,----Augusta Evans.

 

*Love is strongest in pursuit; friendship in possession. ----American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson.

 

*Success has a great tendency to conceal and throw a veil over the evil deeds of men.-------Greek statesman and orator Demosthenes (384 BC-322 BC).

 

*Hate no one; hate their vices, not themselves.----J.G. C. Brainard

 

*Happiness consists in activity. Such is the constitution of our nature. It is a running stream, and not a stagnant pool. ----J.M.Good , English physician (17614-1827).

                                                *******

G.R.Kanwal

17 January 2026   

THE CHILDREN’S SONG

 

           THE CHILDREN’S  SONG

            “The Children’s Song” is a famous prayer written on behalf of English children  by the English poet and novelist Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936).  Its  contents are, however, universally relevant. The poem has also an important patriotic   message for parents and teachers.

             Here are some stanzas  picked up from the original poem:

“Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee

  Our love and toil in the years to be;

When we are grown and take our place.

As  men and women with our race.  

 

 Father in Heaven who lovest all,

Oh help Thy children when they call;

That they may build from age to age,

An undefiled heritage.

 

Teach us the Strength that cannot seek,

By deed or thought, to hurt the weak;

That, under Thee, we may possess

Man’s strength to comfort man’s distress.

 

Teach us Delight in simple things,

And Mirth that has no bitter springs;

Forgiveness free of evil done,

And Love to all men ‘neath the Sun!

 

Land of our Birth, our faith, our pride,

For whose dear sake our fathers died;

Oh Motherland, we pledge to thee,

Head, heart, and hand through the years

To be.

                                                ********

G.R.Kanwal

15^th January 2026

A SHORT NOTE ON MACHIAVELLI

 

A SHORT NOTE ON MACHIAVELLI

            In this short note readers will learn a few useful thoughts imparted by Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli. He was an Italian diplomat, author, philosopher and historian .

            Born on 3 May 1469, he died on 21 June 1527. He is universally known for his political treatise “The Prince” written around 1513 and published in  1532. This small book in which Machiavelli  argues that rulers must be pragmatic, even cruel, is quite controversial among political thinkers and spiritual readers. His philosophy is called Machiavellism.  The average man’s conceptions about this book are contained in such aphorisms as :

            *The end justifies the means.

            *Necessity knows no law.

            * Might makes right.

            The most important fact is that Machiavelli divorces politics from ethics and religion.

            For these aphorisms, however, he finds support  in ancient Greek assumptions such as the state is the highest form of human association and endeavour, the most necessary of all institutions for the protection and promotion of human welfare; and hence that reasons of state should outrank all other kinds of individual or social obligation. Another ancient doctrine is that self-interest is the most potent of all factors of political motivation.

            Chiefly remembered on account of The Prince, Machiavelli was also famous for other writings such as popular novels songs, poems, and comedies. And he also wrote an authentic and well-received history of Florence.      

            To conclude, here are three quotes by him.

*The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.

*it is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

*I am not interested in preserving the status quo. I want to overthrow it.

       G.R.Kanwal

       14 January 2026