Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood -- William Wordsworth

 Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood ⎯ William Wordsworth

The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

I

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore: ⎯

Turn wheresoe’ er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

II 

The Rainbow comes and goes,

And lovely is the Rose,

The moon do the with delight

Look round her when the heavens as bare,

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where’ er I go,

That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

III

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,

And while the young lambs bound

As to the tabor’s sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:

A timely utterance gave that thought relief

And I again am strong:

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;

No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;

I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,

The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,

And all the earth is gay;

Land and sea

Give themselves up to jollity,

And with the heart of May 

Doth every Beast keep holiday; ⎯

Thou Child of Joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy

Shepherd-boy!

IV 

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call

Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;

My heart is at your festival,

My heart is at you festival,

My head hath its coronal,

The fulness of your lies, I feel⎯ I feel it all.

Oh evil day! If I were sullen

While Earth herself is adorning,

This sweet May-morning,

And the Children are culling

On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

Fresh flowers, with joy I hear;

And the Babe leaps up on his Mother’s arm:⎯

I hear, I hear, with joy I hear;

—But  there’s a Tree, of many, one

A single Field which I have looked upon,

Both of them speak of something that is gone:

The Pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

V

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing Boy,

But He beholds the light and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man Perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

VI

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,

And, even with something of a mother’s mind

And no unworthy aim,

The homely Nurse doth all she can

To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,

Forget the glories he hath known,

And that imperial palace whence he came.

VII

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,

A six years’ Darling of a pigmy size!

See, where ’mid work of his mother’s kisses,

Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses,

With light upon him from his father’s eyes!

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,

Some fragment from his dream of human life,

Shaped  by himself with newly-learned art;

A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,

And unto this he frames his song:

Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strive;

But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride

The little Actor cons another part;

Filling from time to time his ‘humorous stage’

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,

The Life brings with her in her equipage:

As if his whole vocation 

Were endless imitation.

VIII

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie

Thy Soul’s immensity;

Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep

Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,

That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,

Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,⎯

Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest,

Which we are toiling all our lives to find,

In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;

Thou, over whom thy Immortality

Broods like the Day, a Master o’er a Slave,

A Presence which is not to be put by;

Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might

Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height,

Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke

The years to bring the inevitable yoke,

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?

Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,

And custom lie upon thee with a weight,

Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

IX

O joy! That in our embers

Is something that doth live,

That nature yet members

What was so fugitive! 

The thought of our past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest:

Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:⎯

Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;

But for those obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,

Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a Creature

Moving about in worlds not realised,

High instincts before which our mortal Nature

Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:

But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being

Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,

To perish never:

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,

Nor Man nor Boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence in a season of calm weather

Though inland for we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the Children sport upon the shore,

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

X

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young Lambs bound

As to the tabor’s sound!

We in thought will join your throng,

Ye that pipe and ye that play,

Ye that through your hearts today

Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;

In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be;

In the soothing thoughts that spring 

Out of human suffering;

In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

XI

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hill, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

I only have relinquished one delight

Tp live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

Is lovely yet;

The clouds that gather round the setting sun

Do take a sober colouring from an eye

That hath kept watch o’ er man’s mortality;

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.

Thanks tot he human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

—— 

ed. mastanappa puletipalli

Enterprise -- Nassim Ezekiel

 ENTERPRISE – NISSIM EZEKIEL

 

It started as a pilgrimage,

Exalting minds and making all

The burdens light. The second stage

Explored but did not test the call.

The sun beat down to match our rage.

 

We stood it very well, I thought,

Observed and put down copious notes

On things the peasants sold and bought,

The way of serpents and of goats,

Three cities where a sage had taught. 

 

But when the differences arose

On how to cross a desert patch,

We lost a friend whose stylish prose

Was quite the best of all our batch.

A shadow falls on us—and grows.

 

Another phase was reached when we 

Were twice attacked, and lost our way.

A section claimed its liberty

To leave the group. I tried to pray.

Our leader said he smelt the sea.

 

We noticed nothing as we went,

A straggling crowd of little hope,

Ignoring what the thunder meant,

Deprived of common needs like soap.

Some were broken, some merely bent.

 

When, finally, we reached the place,

We hardly knew why we were there.

The trip had darkened every face,

Our deeds were neither great nor rare.

Home is where we have to gather grace.

 

-----

 

ed. mastanappa puletipalli

Elegy written in a Country Churchyard -- Thomas Gray

Elegy written in a Country Churchyard – Thomas Gray

 

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness, and to me.

 

Now fades the glimmering landscapes on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

 

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower

The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,

Molest her ancient solitary reign.

 

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade, 

Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,

Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

 

The breezy call of incense breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed.

The cock’s thrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 

 

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,

Or busy housewife ply her evening care:

No children run to lisp their sire’s return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

 

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke:

How jocund did they drive their team afield!

How bow’d the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

 

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

The short and simple annals of the Poor.

 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er grave,

Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour:—

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault

If Memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise.

Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault

The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

 

Can stories urn or animated bust 

Back to its mansion call the fleeting brath?

Can Honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,

Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

 

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;

Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway’d 

Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

 

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page

Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;

Chill Penury repress’d their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul,

 

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dak unfathom’d cave of ocean bear:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

 

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast

The little tyrant of his fields withstood,

Same mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.

 

Th’ applause of list’ning senates to command,

The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation’s eyes,

 

Their lot forbad nor circumscribed alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;

For bad to wade through slaughter to a throne,

And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

 

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,

To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,

Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

With incense kindled at the Muse’s flame.

 

 

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,

Their sober wishes never learne’d o stray;

Along the cool sequester’d vale of life 

They Kept the noiseless tenor of tenor way.

 

Yet e’en these bones from insult to protect

Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck’d,

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

 

Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unletter’d Muse,

The place of fame and elegy supply:

And many a holy text around the strews,

That teach the rustic moralist to die.

 

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing anxious being e’er resign’d 

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,

Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

 

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,

Some pious drops the closing eye requires

E’en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

 

For thee, who, mindful of th’ unhonour’d dead,

Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;

If chance, by lonely contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

 

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,

Oft have we seen him at the deep of dawn

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn,

 

‘There at the foot of yonder nodding beech

That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,

His listless length at noontide would he stretch,

And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

 

‘Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,

Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove.

Now drooping, woeful man, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with care, or cross’d in hopeless love.

 

Öne morn I miss’d him on the custom’d hill,

Along the heath, and near his favourite  tree;

Another came; nor yet beside the rill, 

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

 

‘The next with dirges due in sad array

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,—

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay

Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.’

 

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 ed. mastanappa puletipalli

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

The Brook -- Alfred Tennyson

The Brook – Alfred Tennyson 

 

I come from haunts of coot and hern,

     I make a sudden sally

And sparkle out among the fern,

     To bicker down a valley.

 

By thirty hills I hurry down,

     Or slip between the ridges,

By twenty thorps, a little town,

     And half a hundred bridges. 

 

Till last by Philip’s farm, I flow

     To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,

     But I go on forever.

 

I chatter over stony ways 

     In little sharps and trebles,

I bubble into eddying bays,

     I babble on the pebbles.

 

With many a curve my banks I fret

     By many a field and fallow,

And many a fairy foreland set 

     With willow-weed and mallow.

 

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

     To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,

     But I go on forever.

 

I wind about, and in and out,

     With here a blossom sailing,

And here and there a lusty trout,

     And here and there a grayling,

 

And here and there a foamy flake 

     Upon me, as I travel

With many a silvery water break

     Above the golden gravel,

 

And draw them all along, and flow

     To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,

     But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots;

      I slide by hazel covers;

I move the sweet forget-me-nots

     That grow for happy lovers.

 

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,

     Among my skimming swallows;

I make the netted sunbeam dance

     Against my sandy shallows.

 

I murmur under moon and stars

     In brambly wildernesses;

I linger by my shingly bars;

     I loiter round my cresses;

 

And out again I curve and flow

     To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,

     But I go on forever. 

 

                      ----

 

 ed. mastanappa puletipalli

 

  

The Definition of Love - Andrew Marvel

 THE DEFINITION OF LOVE – ANDREW MARVEL

 

My love is of a birth as rare

As ’tis for object strange and high:

It was begotten by Despair

Upon Impossibility.

 

Magnanimous Despair alone

Could show me so divine a thing,

Where feeble Hope could ne’er have flown

But vanity flapt its tinsel wing.

 

And yet I quickly might arrive

Where my extended soul is fixt,

But fate does iron wedges drive,

And always crowds itself betwixt.

 

For Fate with jealous eye does see

Two perfect loves: nor lets them close:

Their union would her ruin be,

And her tyrannic pow’r depose.

 

And therefore, her decrees of steel

Us as the distant poles have placed,

(Though Love’s whole world on us doth wheel)

Not by themselves to be embraced. 

 

Unless the giddy heaven fall,

And earth some new convulsion tear;

And, us to join, the world should all

Be cramped into a planisphere.

 

As lines so loves oblique may well

Themselves in every angle greet:

But ours so truly parallel,

Though infinite can never meet.

 

Therefore the love which us doth bind,

But Fate so enviously debars,

Is the conjunction of the mind,

And opposition of the stars. 

 

                   ----

 The Definition of Love – Andrew Marvel

 

Andrew Marvell’s poem “The Definition of Love” is very much resembles to Joh Donne’s metaphysical lyrics. The poem depicts of love between souls and minds that is distinct from the physical body. The poem constitutes an exploration of love depicting two perfect yet irreconcilable loves — the love of the speaker and the love of his love. These two lovers are perfect in themselves, and they face each other in an opposition of perfection, but, according to the speaker’s formulation, the same condition prevents them meeting in the physical sphere. 

 

In the first stanza, the speaker makes an odd and striking claim — that his love is so unique and “rare” it must have been born of “Despair” and “Impossibility”, which is a surprisingly dark and tragic formulation of love. The speaker goes on to explain that only despair could have revealed this love to him, because it shows both the utter perfection of the love he feels, and at the same time, the impossibility of its physical fulfilment. Hence, the speaker constructs an oxymoron — “Magnanimous Despair” — as an attempt to bring his reader closer to understanding the nature of his love. 

 

Andrew Marvell further develops the speaker’s frustration at being separated from his beloved in stanza three, where the speaker elaborates upon the role of Fate. The speaker claims that his perfect love would lead him to the place where his “extended soul is fixed”, or in other words, would lead his body to the location where his soul is already connected to his beloved’s. However, Fate actively prevents this by erecting an “iron wedge” between the two lovers. The speaker then explains that Fate keeps the lovers from each other because it perceives their union as usurping its power. The speaker represents Fate as a tyrant with a “jealous eye” who desires to maintain control over the two perfect loves.

 

He goes on to say that Fate has given “decrees of steel” that place the two lovers distantly apart, which effectively prevents a perfect union of both their physical and spiritual love. The symbols of an iron wedge and a steel decree suggest Fate’s dominion over the hard, physical realities of the body, which contrasts sharply with the speaker’s claim that the lovers enjoy metaphysical perfection in their own transcendent love. 

 

Next, the speaker attempts to imagine the only conditions in which he and his lover might be physically united. These include the Heavens falling, an earthquake collapsing the Earth, or the entire planet being compressed into a flat plane. This speaker uses the paradoxical term “planisphere” for this imagined event. Each of these conditions is impossible, and as the speaker acknowledges this fact, he goes on to construct a new, geometrical conceit that contrasts the love of the speaker and his lady with a more typical love. Their love is like a pair of parallel lines— infinitely perfect as they extend— yet they shall never meet. Meanwhile common love is less perfect, like a pair of oblique lines, which by nature will eventually intersect.  

 

In the final stanza, Andrew Marvell delivers two definitions of the speaker’s love: it is both “the conjunction of the mind” and the “opposition of the stars”. This two-part definition encapsulates the divided nature of their love. On one hand, the image of the conjunction suggests proximity and harmony, while the image of opposition implies that their love implicitly refers to the power of Fate in the physical universe, which in this case, prevents the lovers from meeting on the place of material embodiment.  

 

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 borrowed edited mastanappa puletipalli