Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer - Ogden Nash

Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer – Ogden Nash

The poet, Ogden Nash says in his poem “Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer” that his poem intends to celebrate banks. Thus, he makes the readers feel curious when the poet states that his poem celebrates banks. The banks will let us hear the clink-clank sound of the coins and the rustling sound of the currency notes. Of course, Money is an attraction that draws people towards it always and forever. Suddenly the poet changes the tone of his voice. He comments that bankers dwell in luxurious buildings. It is because they encourage deposits and discourage withdrawals. The stingy attitude of the bankers in lending and particularly to the poor sets the tone of the poem. He comments that banks are cautious conservatives and the bankers deny lending money to the needy. They dislike the people who have no money and no property to give them as security.

But the bankers shrewdly and tactfully behave with the rich persons. On seeing their rich customers they express their kindliness and greet them courteously and offer to lend as much money as they want. They would serve the rich customers with utmost care and affection. The vice-presidents of the banks nod their heads positively to such proposals. They would even send money to the customers’ place if they want.    

The poet says that bankers deserve our appreciation. The tone of the poet sounds very bitter and harsh. It means the very opposite of what is said.

The poet criticizes the too much commercial attitude of the bankers. They are pro-rich and anti-poor. The banks have to act as catalysts of social change. They have to see that the resources are evenly distributed among the various classes of society. They have to encourage the entrepreneurs and empower the deserving poor and hardworking people. But they are too cautious and conservative; they cannot discharge their duties to the society. They have to fulfill the objectives of the banking industry.  They play safe and fail to realize their obligations and duties; they would only facilitate the rich to grow richer and the poor become poorer.

The poet hints that bankers owe a duty to society. Wealth has to be distributed evenly. Those who do not have money but have the skills and talents, banks ought to help them to come up. But if the bankers play only by rules and stick on to their conservatism and pro-rich stance, they can earn profits without the ‘social gains’. Such attitude is absolutely undeserving. Thus, the poet prompts the bankers and readers to think of their duties and responsibilities with the ultimate objectives of the banking industry.

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The Stock Exchange Welcomes You As A Visitor

The Stock Exchange Welcomes You as a Visitor

 L. Engles, F. Icks, P. Jocbs and J. Schuerewegen

L. Engles and his co-authors of the essay “The Stock Exchange Welcomes You As A Visitor” give us a beautiful insight about the oldest Stock Exchange of the world that was started nearly 250 years ago.

The Stock Exchange, a Financial Market, started in 17^th Century, when the Government and a number of trading enterprises, began to raise money by the public subscription. Stocks and shares were issued and as they were bought and sold on an increasing scale. At this juncture a regular market began to form, with ‘brokers’ whose business was to bring buyers and sellers together.

Earlier, stock brokers used to meet in the Old Royal Exchange. Later their business was carried on in the coffee houses around the “Change Alley” there the uniformed attendants await the customers of the Stock Exchange. They are now called waiters.

In 1713, a meeting of stock brokers decided to have a house of their own to facilitate the trade. Soon, they took over a building at the corner of Treadneedle Street and Sweetings Alley and inscribed over its door a new title “The Stock Exchange”

The great financial market we know today has grown step by step with the expansion of British Industry and Commerce. In this market there are two types of members, brokers and jobbers.

Brokers act as agents. It is their business to carry out your instructions to buy or sell shares to your best possible advantage, and for this they receive a fixed rate of commission. The most important of all these --- they give advice to you at no charge. These services are based on a continuous study of industrial and economic reports from all over the world.

Jobbers deal as principals or wholesalers in stocks and shares. They deal only with brokers and do not come into contact with the public. Jobbers have to be prepared to buy or sell what you want to sell or buy – through brokers. This may involve them in a loss or profit according to their subsequent transaction. A jobber may hang a list of prices of stocks and shares against a pillar or a wall near his ‘pitch’ in which he specializes. In that list some prices are marked in blue, indicating a rise, and others in red, showing fall. All deals are recorded in the note books. No formal bargain is made, even for transaction involving many thousands of pounds.  Here man’s word is his bond as the motto of the House declares: “Dictum Meum Pactum.”

On every Thursday, at 11.45 am the government broker arrives from the bank of England bringing news of any change in the bank rate. A similar board, of course it is not visible from the Gallery, shows the bank rates prevailing in New York, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. Besides these exhibits the announcements of companies dividends is made public by messages flashed on to lighted screens in various parts of the House. Taking the notes of all this information a jobber may raise his voice occasionally to offer or bid for the shares in which he deals.

At exactly 2.15 pm you may hear a curious rattling sound saying that no more transactions can be recorded in the day’s list – the list from which are complied the detailed share prices which can be read in the next day’s newspaper. Again at 3.15 pm another rattle sound is made to tell the members that they may smoke if they wish, during the last quarter of an hour of business. Half an hour after the Gallery has been closed, the closing of the House is announced by a third rattle signal at 3.30 pm. There ends your visiting hours of the Stock Exchange.

But this not the end of the day’s activities but business may be continued further on telephone in the offices of brokers and jobbers till late hour of the night. 

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II SEMESTER ADDITIONAL ENGLISH

THE SOLITARY REAPER – WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

BEHOLD HER, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain,

O listen! For the vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard

In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings? —

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of today?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?

Whate’er the theme, the maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at her work,

And o’er the sickle bending; —

I listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770 – 1850), born at Cockermouth, was educated at Hawkshead and Cambridge. As a young man he undertook a walking tour of France and Italy and was deeply influenced by the ideals of the French Revolution. Later, Wordsworth published Lyrical Ballads in collaboration with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with which began the Romantic Revival in English poetry. Wordsworth is not only initiator but also a leading poet of the movement. He was known as a poet of nature and of man.

THE SOLITARY REAPER is a thoughtful poem on man (human being) and nature. The poet wandering in the hills and valleys of the Scottish Highlands once saw a lovely peasant girl reaping and singing in the field. The sight was pleasing and the sad song appeared enchanting and more moving than the songs of nightingales and cuckoos. The poet tried to get at the meaning of the song which he did not understand: it might be about things long past like battles or some unhappy events; it might be about some matter of common sorrow that had happened and might happen again. The sight and the song have made a deep impression on his mind and will stay in his memory for long. 

behold:             look

yon:                  (yonder), there at farthest distance

highland:          the Scottish Highlands

lass:                 girl

strain:              a sad note of song

weary:              very tired

shady haunt:     cool shelter / Oasis

vale:                 valley

Hebrides:         a group of islands off the west coast of Scotland. The islands are popular with tourists in the summer

plaintive:          sounding sad, esp. in a weak complaining way

Summary of the poem

In the year 1803 William Wordsworth toured Scotland with Dorothy Wordsworth and his close friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge as his companions. The sight of reapers in the harvest fields reminded Wordsworth of a sentence in a book by one of his friends: ‘passed a female, who was reaping alone: she sang in Erse as she bent over sickle: the sweetest human voices I ever heard; her strains were tenderly melancholy, and felt delicious long after they were heard mo more’. The poem was thus inspired partly by his own experience and partly by that of his friend. The subject of the poem is familiar scene from rustic life. In order to relate an incident from common life the poet has made use of a language which is used by common people in their everyday life. By doing this, Wordsworth has fulfilled the promise made in the preface to the Lyrical Ballads which is the manifesto of the Romantic Movement.

Once, Wordsworth saw a young girl reaping and singing all alone in a field. The echo of her sweet song was about a battle fought long ago. The song of the solitary reaper was no doubt as sweet as the song of a nightingale which sang from an Oasis in the Arabian Desert. It was certainly more thrilling than the song sung by a cuckoo in the Hebrides. The poet wondered at the subject of her song. Perhaps the subject of the song was a battle fought long ago. Or perhaps she was singing about a humble subject like the sufferings of ordinary people. Whatever might be the subject; the song was spontaneous and seemed to have no end. It impressed the poet so much that he felt thrilled for quite some time. In other words it was an unforgettable experience.

AN OLD MAN – R. S. THOMAS

LOOK at him there on the wet road,

Muffled with smoke, an old man trying

Time’s treacherous ice with a slow foot.

Tears on his cheek are the last glitter

On bare branches of the long storm

That shook him once leaving him bowed

And destitute as a tree stripped

Of foliage under a bald sky.

Come, then, winter, build with your cold

Hands a bridge over those depths

His mind balks at; let him go on,

Confident still; let the hard hammer

Of pain fall with as light a blow

On the brow’s anvil as the sun does now.

REV. RONALD STUART THOMAS (1913—) is a Welshman and priest, ordained in 1936. His poems are honest, realistic and sometimes severe. They have the naked strength of the Welsh landscape which forms the background of his poems. The rhythm of his poems is slow and deliberate.

AN OLD MAN deals with the coming of old age. As the body decays and death draws near the old man falters on the path of life and slowly succumbs to the ravages that life had wrought on him. Here winter is taken to represent time and the poet requests winter to be kind so that the severity of old age and death are allayed or mitigated. The image of the bridge that winter is asked to build presents the picture of man’s life as a journey across the bridge of death to the world beyond.   

muffled:            wrapped or covered

trying time’s treacherous ice with slow foot: time is described as treacherous like the crust of ice on road,

lakes or rivers. On road it is slippery, on lakes or rivers it may break when stepped on letting the man fall into the icy water below. As one becomes old the world becomes a dangerous place for him. So one has to tread carefully (live carefully).

long storm:       the span of life; the storm here is used as a metaphor of life

destitute:          poor, bereft

stripped:           made bare

bridge:             the bridge here symbolizes death

balk:                 shirk, hesitate; (here) to be afraid to go forward

anvil:                an iron block on which the blacksmith hammers metal to shape

AN OLD MAN – REV. RONALD STUART THOMAS

Rev. Ronald Stuart Thomas’ poem ‘An Old Man’ is one of the shortest and beautiful poems of his imagination but it is the best of its kind. His poems are remarkably honest, realistic and sometimes very severe in suggestion. As a parson R. S. Thomas is successful in this poem in bringing out the true difficulties of ‘the old age’ and exerting the public sympathy towards old people.

The poem ‘An Old Man’ deals with the subject of approaching old age and its difficulties. As the body decays and imminent death draws near, the old man falters on the path of life and slowly succumbs to the ravages that life had wrought on him. Metaphorically, the season ‘winter’ is taken to represent the time of ‘old age’ and the poet requests ‘the winter’ to be kind enough towards old men so that the severity of old age and death are allayed. The image of the bridge that winter is asked to build presents the picture of man’s life as a journey across the bridge of death to the world beyond.

The poet asks us with a great concern to look at an old man reverentially who is trying with slow foot on the wet road muffled with smoke. The old age, the last stage of the life, is compared to winter as the last season of the year. The old man is seen in this poem, walking slowly on the dangerous slippery icy roads. The winter time is described as treacherous like the crust of ice on roads, lakes or rivers. The icy roads are slippery and on lakes or rivers the ice may break when stepped on letting the man fall into the icy water below. As a person becomes old, the world becomes a dangerous place for him so he has to tread carefully (live carefully). The tears on his cheeks resembling as the last glitters on the bare branches of a tree whose foliage ravished in the long storm. He asks the winter to build a bridge with its cold hands to walk slowly and confidently across the deep depths like difficulties of his life to meet his Death. The poem concludes with great revelation that all people on this earth are shaped with a hard hammer of ‘Pain’ on the anvil of the ‘Time’ under the Sun subjected to endure the difficulties of old age.

DEATH, BE NOT PROUD – JOHN DONNE

DEATH, BE NOT PROUD, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not soe;

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poore Death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.

From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,

Much pleasure — then from thee much more must flow;

And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,

Rest of their bones and soul’s deliverie.

Thou’rt slave to Fate, Chance, kings and desperate men,

And dost with poyson, war, and sickness dwell;

And poppie of charms can make us sleepe as well,

And better than thy stroake. Why swell’st thou then?

One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,

And Death shall be no more, Death, thou shalt die.

JOHN DONNE (1571 – 1631) was born in London and was educated at Oxford and Cambridge. Then he entered Lincoln’s Inn. At first a Roman Catholic he later became Anglican. He was secretary to the lord keeper, Sir Egerton, from 1596 to 1602 but upon secretly marrying Anne Moore, the lord keeper’s wife’s niece, he fell from grace. His sermons rank among the best in the seventeenth century. He wrote a large variety of poems: satires, epistles, elegies, and miscellaneous poems. His poetry has been described as ‘metaphysical’.

DEATH BE NOT PROUD is a poem where Donne challenges the power of death and by argument shows him (death) to be powerless. He describes death as a slave of fate, chance, kings, and murderers, and one who lives a miserable life with poison, war, and sickness. Death cannot destroy man because man’s soul is liberated by death and in the other world it does not even exist. In the poem Donne addresses death as a person; this device is known as personification.

mighty:                                     great and powerful

dreadful:                                  fearful

overthrow:                                defeat; (here) kill

which but thy pictures bee:        which closely resemble death. “Death’ is often referred to as ‘sleep’.

best men:                                  most virtuous people; those who are loved by God die young.

soules deliverie:                        their souls are freed from their bodily prisons

poppie:                                     opium or opium preparations.

charmes:                                  drugs with magical properties.

better than they stroake:            their operation is gentle and painless.

swell’st:                                    feels proud

wee wake eternally:                  live forever in the other world.

Summary:

“Death Be Not Proud” is one of the finest poems of John Donne from his collection of poems “Holy Sonnets” addressed to Death. Death is generally supposed to be ‘mighty and dreadful’, but in reality it is neither ‘mighty’ nor ‘dreadful’. Therefore it should not be proud.

Having stated his point of view, Donne proceeds like a clever lawyer to give argument to prove it. Death is not dreadful, for those whom death is supposed to kill are not killed in reality. They do not die; they only sleep a long and peaceful sleep. Rest and sleep resemble death. As great comfort and pleasure results from sleep, so greater comfort and pleasure must result from death. That is why those who are virtuous die young. Death merely frees their souls form the prison of their bodies, and provides rest to their bodies. As death brings rest and quiet, it cannot be regarded as dreadful in any way. 

Death is not ‘mighty’ as well. It is not like a mighty king, but like a wretched slave. It is a slave of fate, chance, wicked and malicious persons, poison, wars and sickness. Death is not the cause, but the instrument. It obeys the call of accidents, kings, wicked murderers, poison, war, old age, and sickness. It is not a free agent, but a miserable slave who lives in such wretched company with sickness and old age. It cannot be regarded as glorious or mighty in any way. As a matter of fact, opium preparations or similar other intoxicants, or drugs supposed to have magical properties, can induce better sleep and with a far gentler and painless operations.

Finally, there is reason at all for Death to be proud of its powers. Death can make sleep only for a short while. After our short sleep in the grave, we will awake in the other world and live there eternally. Then Death will have no power over us. Thus, in reality, Death does not kill us; it is death itself which dies. In this way, the sonnet ends with a paradox which the poet has already proved and established. 

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI — JOHN KEATS

O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

So haggard, and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever dew;

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too —

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful — a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild—

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She look’d at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan —

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long;

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

A faery’s song —

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna dew;

And sure in language strange she said —

‘I love thee true.’

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept and sigh’d full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,

And there I dream’d —Ah! Woe-betide!

The latest dream I ever dream’d

On the cold hill’s side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried — “La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Hath thee in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam

With horrid warning gapèd wide,

And I awoke, and found me here,

On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge has withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

JOHN KEATS (1795 – 1821), son of a stable keeper in London, learn Latin, history, and some French. He was apprenticed to become a doctor but ultimately qualified as a surgeon. But he abandoned surgery owing to his passion for poetry. He wrote for a short period from 1816 to 1820 when he became seriously ill with tuberculosis. He died in Rome. He desired that on his tomb should be written: ‘Here lies one whose name was writ in water’. His poetry, however, has etched his name in bold letters which will survive long. Keats is a worshipper of beauty and his verse is passionate and moving.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI is a ballad (a popular story narrated in short stanzas). It narrates the story of a knight who is enticed by a beautiful elf. This elf is the beautiful but merciless woman of the poem. She offers him many pleasures but when he wakes in the morning he finds no beloved and is left alone on the cold hillside where ‘no birds sing’. The story treats beauty, women, and love cynically.

loitering:          to stand or stroll in public place, usu. with no particular/obvious purpose

sedge:              a plant like glass that grows in wet lands near water.

haggard:          looking very tired and unhappy

woebegone:      looking very unhappy and worried

steed:               horse / stallion

faery:               fairy / elf

grot:                 (grotto) a cave, esp. one made artificially in the garden

sore:                 painfully

woe-betide:      (idm.) woe-betide sb. There will be trouble for sb.

gloam:              (gloom) the faint light after the sun set or before its rise.

horrid:             very bad and unpleasant / horrible

sojourn:           to stay in a place away from one’s home for a time

Summary:

‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is one of the short but very popular poems of John Keats. In its brief space of forty eighty lines Keats has achieved the highest perfection of the ‘ballad’ form. This is the only one of its kind by him. ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ can hardly be said to tell a story. It sets before us the wasting of Power and Time just for the sake of Love, when either the hostility of fate or a mistaken choice makes of love not a blessing but a disaster. The wretchedness of love which the poet describes in the poem is partly that of his soul in relation to Fanny Brawne.  The imagery of the poem is drawn from the medieval world of enchantment and knighthood.

The poem abounds in vivid pictures such as of the pale young knight whose forehead is moist with sweat, the beautiful lady with long hair and wild eyes, and the pale kings and princes dressed as warriors. The theme of the poem is unrequited love: The language used to narrate the story is simple, but sprinkled with archaic terms and expressions, that give a romantic glamour to the poem. ‘Palely loitering’, ‘woe-begone’, ‘fragrant zone’, ‘relish sweet’, ‘manna-dew’, and ‘woe betide’, are some such expressions. On the whole the poem helps to recall the medieval days and chivalry with its tales of knights and fair ladies. 

The poet in the course of his wanderings happened to meet a young knight in a strange place. The poet asked the knight why he looked so frightened and miserable. The knight replied that some time ago, in a far off meadow, he met a beautiful lady with long hair and wild eyes. He fell in love with her and adorned her with a wreath, bracelets and a belt, all made of fragrant flowers. She looked at him and by making sweet moans signaled that she loved him. He placed her on his horse and walked by her side. He was led to a small cave where she fed him with some delicious food and afterwards lulled him to sleep. During his sleep he dreamt of kings and princes who had been previously enchanted by the same lady. They told him that he too had been enslaved by the beautiful lady without pity. That was why he was found loitering in the strange place.

II SEMESTER (POEMS) SUMMARIES

Digging – Seamus Heaney

The most covetous Nobel Prize winner of 1995, Seamus Heaney expresses his feelings in his typical poem ‘Digging’ extracted from his first volume of poems called “Death of Naturalist”. His poetry mostly deals with the history of his family. The opposing natures and backgrounds of his parents caused considerable tension in his mind. The poet considered that the agriculture is the noblest of all professions of a man by which a farmer could feed the nation. The farmer strives hard both day and night throughout the year to grow more food to shun the hunger from the face of this earth.

“But I’ve no spade to follow them”

The poet worried himself that he could not follow his for fathers’ work. Similarly, the modern youth is also slowly drifting away from these agricultural activities and had fallen behind the white collar jobs. In this context the opening lines of the poem say….

                        “Between my finger and my thumb

                          The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.”

The poem ‘Digging’ begins with our speaker at his desk, his pen poised to begin writing. Heaney gives us an image of a hand holding a pen as a gun. The pen rests between the poet’s fingers as warm and comfortable as a gun with a filled magazine of bullets like words and novel ideas to awake the people. Suddenly, he gets distracted by the rasping sound of his father outside, working with a spade in the garden. This sends our speaker into a spiral of memories about his father working in the potato fields when the speaker was young boy. The poet looks down from his reading desk through the window as hears the unpleasant sound of a spade digging the gravelly ground. Through which the poet could see the rhythmic movements of up and down of his father’s straining rump among the potato drills digging potatoes.   The poet recalls that his father was doing same type of agricultural work since his infancy. His work is so hard as his body is old enough to comply his work. As a child the poet enjoys the cool and hardness of potatoes when he picked the scattered ones.

“By God, the old man could handle a spade,

Just like his old men.”

The memory stretches even farther back to his grandfather whose hard-work as a peat harvester. His grandfather was also engrossed in the same kind of job. He proved that he could cut more turf in a day than any other man on Toner’s bog. He fondly recalls, once he carried his milk in a bottle. The bottle was sloppily ‘corked with paper and straightened up to drink it then he fell right away. Eventually, our speaker snaps out of his day-dream and comes back at his desk to get on to his writing work.

“Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.”

The concluding lines of the poem gave us an idea that the poet could not copy the same type of his father’s farming of potatoes but farming the ideas in the farmland of his brain. Instead of the spade his pen is used to harvest the ideas that have been growing up in his mind. The pen is mightier than anything else and a small idea can change the world.

When I have fears……. – John Keats

John Keats is a celebrated romantic poet destined to die too young owing to his tuberculosis. He was only 25 when he died in 1821. Like most tragic heroes, Keats never lived to see the public appreciation on his works¸ In fact, during his life, all publishing houses have rejected to publish all his poetic endeavours. It was only after his death that his poetry collections like ‘Ode to Nightingale’, ‘Endymion’, ‘Ode to Grecian Urn’ etc. received the critical acclaim from all quarters.

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever;

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,”

This small illustration shows the spirit of Keats’s romanticism, with its perfect finish and melody, John Keats was not only the last but also the most perfect of Romanticists. While Walter Scott was merely telling stories, and William Wordsworth reforming poetry or upholding the moral law, and P. B. Shelley advocating impossible reforms, and Byron voicing his own egoism and the political discontent of the times, Keats lived apart from these men and all political measures, worshipping beauty like a devotee, perfectly content to write what was in his own heart, or to reflect some splendour of the natural world as he saw. His reputation as a poet grew steadily after his death with the increasing popularity of Romanticism. He is now seen as a key figure of the Romantic Movement in English Literature. His works greatly influenced his later writers and his letters and poems are still very popular even today and studied in detail by the students of English literature.

The present poem “When I have fears….” expresses his fear of dying young. At the age of twenty-one he wrote,

“Oh, for ten years that overwhelm

Myself in poesy.”

By the age of twenty-four there is only three years later, he had stopped writing because of his ill health. There were times he felt confident that his poetry would survive him, “I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death.” Nevertheless, the inscription he wrote for his headstone was, “There lies one whose name was writ in water”.

Keats poetry was morbidly fascinated with the thought of his own demise. He spent most of his youth and adulthood suffering from tuberculosis that brought him into frequent contact with the possibility of death.

The ‘fear’ of his death worried him that he could not fulfill his strong wish of writing poetry. He may not use his genius capabilities that have been endowed with him from the high piling books in different charactery. His knowledge and his new fertile ideas gathered from various sources. His collection of ideas represents that a farmer collecting ripened seeds of wisdom from his harvest. He felt starry nights and huge clouds in the sky created by magic hand of the ‘Time’ are often initiate with high romance. Suddenly he felt his advancing death may not allow him to trace at least their shadows again. Nature appears to him so beautiful and he was magically enchanted by its beauty. But those creations may remain only for a short time and disappear forever. He may not enjoy such ‘Faery Power’ of the Nature of the full length of his life. Hence the poet does not want to miss every opportunity to enjoy personally all alone before his advancing death. He concludes the poem with a remark,

“Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.”

He would never be able to relish the charms of passionate love and beauty of nature. He feels lonely in this wide world all alone. He fears that his love and his fame would sink into nothingness if death comes before the fulfillment of his wish.        

However, Keats is trying to reflect upon his feeling that he achieves some distancing from his own feeling and ordinary life. This distancing enables him to reach a resolution. He thinks about human solitariness (‘I stand alone’) and human insignificance (‘the wide world’). The shore is a point of contact, the threshold between two worlds or two conditions of land and sea (life and death). So Keats is crossing a threshold, from his desire for fame and love to accepting their unimportance and ceasing to fear and yearn (desire).

Gandhi – Niranjan Mohanty

The father of our nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, is compared to great saints of the world. His love for nation and exhibiting fearless and undaunted bravery in the freedom struggle is known to every human being of the world. The ‘Truth’ and ‘Non-violence’ are the two invincible weapons with him to fight against British Empire to secure freedom to the nation. In this poem titled ‘Gandhi’ Niranjan Mohanty recounts Mahatma Gandhiji’s sacrifices and sufferings during India’s struggle for freedom. Gandhiji is ready to shed tears, suffers pains and even give his life for the sake of the Nation.

The poet, Niranjan Mohanty imbibed with patriotic feelings of Gandhiji, has expressed Gandhiji’s through this poem. “They” refers here the people of India who have been divided among themselves in the name of religion, caste, creed, regionalism and language besides socio-economic challenges like ignorance, illiteracy, poverty and untouchablity before Gandhiji to achieve unity among the people. He wanted to eradicate these votive egoistic self-centered demonic people at the time of freedom struggle by sacrificing everything even his flesh and blood. Flesh and blood is the rich and fertile manure for the growth of Liberty.

Gandhiji had sacrificed everything his personal possessions, wishes, joys, happiness and every possible good moment for the sake of united India. He shed his tears, blood to satisfy the dirty monstrous selfish dividers of the nation. Probably Gandhiji’s aims and ambitions for harmonious nation were supposed to be unwanted. Finally, Gandhiji fell to the bullets of a haughty fanatic and his body is laid to rest as a martyr, honouring him as Mahatma (the Great Soul) of the nation. Nobody was in a position to understand his great motivation to build a mighty nation.

“O’ Lord of the universe

Save them”

The last two lines of the poem reveal the magnanimity of the Mahatma who seems to say, as Jesus Christ actually about his tormentors, “Forgive them for they know not what they are doing.”

  

No Men Are Foreign – James Kirkup

James Kirkup tells us through this poem “No Men Are Foreign” that we should not consider any human being on this earth as ‘foreigner’ or ‘stranger’. Though Mankind is same all over the world, somewhere, someone is harming other one in the name of foreigner. It is in one way or in the other way we are only harming ourselves.  In the name of destroying another country, we are destroying our own mother earth which supports our life.  

  

To sum up the poem that there are no strange men, no foreign countries though the costumes or dresses may be different but people live them are same. The Land on which we walk, the air what we breathe, the water that we drink are same wherever we go on this earth. We share and live on the same land and of course we are buried in the same land. The sun, the air, the water and the food we consume are same all over the world.

All people are same all over the world and there is no difference from one to one. They are all similar in every aspect body activities and feeling a sense of pain and pleasure. We all have common life to lead. We all able to recognize and understand that hatredness begets hatredness.

The Unknown Citizen – W. H. Auden

How does W H Auden picturise a socially-regimented citizen in a materialistic Utopia of Modern Age in his poem ‘The Unknown Citizen’?

W. H. Auden is a sensitive citizen, a poet, lover of freedom and desires that every citizen should enjoy freedom. With his remarkable social and political awareness, he opposed totalitarianism which destroys the freedom of an individual by imposing too many controls on one’s freedom and reduces him to a mere ‘number’ on an identity card. According to him, modern society is like a goodly apple rotten at the core.

It is a mockery and irony that the state which is directly responsible for the dilution of individual freedom and appreciates the unknown citizen and makes him known, through a marble monument, to perpetuate his memory. The poet wonders that the monument might have been erected to commemorate his tolerance, even after losing his freedom under the controls of the state. Happiness and freedom for such citizens become words of no substance, and no significance. The actions of the state seem merely to mock these noble concepts.

Auden opens his poem ‘Unknown Citizen’ with reference to a citizen who is unknown. This ordinary citizen was remembered by a marble monument erected by the state in his honour. The bureau of statistics which is there to look after the citizens’ conduct and welfare, made no complaint against this particular citizen at any moment. All the reports on his conduct give him a clean chit. The old-fashioned word ‘saint’ can be used to regard him, although he belongs to the modern times.

Whatever he did, he did only for the benefit of the society. Auden certifies that he served the greater community till the day of his retirement. He worked sincerely in a factory where he was never found to be guilty and no one suspended him or dismissed him from his job. He always satisfied his superiors and his employers. Auden sarcastically describes the company where he works is Fudge Motors Inc.

The citizens never refused to give their opinion of his co-workers, nor did he owe any dues to the trade union. He was as popular with his colleagues as he was with others. Like many ordinary individuals he enjoyed a drink now and then. The press was happy that he read a paper, daily. He never over-reacted to any advertisements. His insurance policies proved that he was fully covered by the insurance. The health card maintained in his name showed that he was healthy. He visited a hospital only once during his long years of service.

He enjoyed all comforts which a common man could afford. He had a gramophone, a radio, a car and a Frigidaire. Public opinion surveys revealed that his opinions about men and matters had nothing offensive. In peace, he enjoyed peace and in war, he went to war when he was called upon. Like many ordinary citizens, he was also married and had five children and at that time population experts considered that this was the right number for any parent. Teachers reported that he never interfered with his children’s education.

Auden concludes his poem very sarcastically saying that he may not ask the citizen a question that whether he was happy. The question, the poet feels, is absurd. If anything had happened wrong, it would certainly have been reported.

Thus, Auden represents through the character of the unknown citizen, modern man who is reduced to a part of a machine. He has no individuality. He accepted the views of the state, without any resistance. So the government was happy with him, but the citizens cannot be called happy in any true sense of the word, as the citizen never enjoyed the benefits of freedom. He lived like a slave without any opinion which could be called his own.

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MOTHER'S DAY - J. B. PRIESTLY

Mother’s Day, a play by J. B. Priestley, portraying the status of a mother in a household. Priestly humorously explores the story when Mrs. Pearson, in her forties, stands up for her rights and how her family reacts at this. Mrs. Pearson is very fond of her family and works day and night to support her family members in the best possible manner. However, she is upset at the way she is being treated. Nobody cares for her or asks about her. All day long she stays at home doing all the work. In the evening when the kids and her husband return she threw herself in meeting their demands. She did not want any dislikeable thing to happen in her household yet she craved for their attention and a little respect. She went to her neighbour Mrs. Fitzgerald, a fortune teller and a magician. Older and heavy, Mrs. Fitzgerald comes out with a plan. She proposed that they could exchange bodies and then with Pearson’s body, she would teach a lesson to Pearson’s family that Mrs. Pearson could not do herself for she was too humble and nice to do that.

Though reluctant, Mrs. Pearson agreed to the idea and the two exchanged their bodies. Mrs. Pearson was still not sure and asked Mrs. Fitzgerald if she could get her body back. However, determined Fitzgerald tells Pearson to not to worry and that she would handle the matter carefully. She left for Pearson’s home with Mrs. Pearson’s body. She entered the home and knew what she was to do to teach Pearsons a lesson so they would not bother Mrs. Pearson in future unnecessarily. Mrs. Pearson (Mrs.Fitzgerald’s soul) smoked a cigarette and was confident than ever. A few moments later, her daughter, Doris Pearson, entered the house and started demanding tea and her dress. Mrs. Pearson was sure to make her realise that she was Doris’ mother and not a servant. She was stunned to see her mother smoking and that she had not prepared tea for her and that her dress was not ready as well. Doris told her mother that she was to go out with her beau Charles Spencer on which the mother remarked if she could not find someone better. This broke Doris and she left weeping.

Then came the son, Cyril Pearson, who is amused at his mother’s strange behaviour. They get into an argument. The children could not baffle the situation. When the mother left to fetch the stout, the children discussed their mother’s behaviour. Doris felt that it might have been that mother got her head hit. Then enters mother with a bottle of stout and a glass half filled with it. The children began to laugh and the mother chided them and asked them to behave like grown-ups. Doris then asked her mother for her such behaviour and if they had done something wrong. Then Mrs. Pearson tells them that it is actually the children’s and her husband’s behaviour that has disturbed her. They always come and go without bothering about her. They demand duties from her and she does her best to keep everyone happy and still no body is bothered about her. She remarks that while the three of them do a job of forty hours a week with two days as weekend, she goes on working seven days round the clock. She proclaimed that she would do some work on Saturday and Sunday only if she is thanked for everything.

When the mother scolded Doris and Cyril duly, entered George Pearson and is annoyed at her wife sipping stout. He told her that he would have supper at the club and that he did not want tea. The wife told him that there was no tea. He got annoyed and the wife then said that when he did not want tea then why was he fighting for it. Mr. Pearson is flabbergasted at such conduct of his wife. The wife continues to rebuke the husband telling him that why he goes to club when he is a joke among all there. He is stunned and demanded the truth from his son. Cyril got upset at his mother yet told the father that it was the truth. Then enters Mrs.Fitzgerald (actually Mrs.Pearson). Mrs. Pearson (actually Mrs.Fitzgerald) told her that she was just putting everyone at place and that the things were alright. Mrs.Pearson(Mrs.Fitzgerald in body) requested to have her body then and Mrs.Pearson(Mrs.Fitzgerald in body) on a condition that Pearson would not go soft on her family again. They got into their original bodies and Mrs.Fitzgerald left. The mother and the children and husband smiled at each other and it was decided that they all will have the dinner together and play a game of rummy.

   

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