A Bouquet of Great Poems - Introduction

Poems and Poets

Light and Delight

1.Poetry is the earliest form adopted by the human mind to express its experiences, thoughts, visions. All ancient civilisations are full of poetry of various types, even though by today's norms they would all be considered 'illiterate' or primitive. This poetry was not just recited but sung and danced,accompanied by music. Poetry was the medium through which culture and traditions of the society, so essential for its survival were transmitted to the next generations. On the contrary a society which lost touch with its own ancestral poetry lost itself and became the slave and imitator of others.

2.Poetry has been the greatest inspiration of the civilised kind through the ages.Poets did not deal in mere words. Kavi in the Indian tradition means one who knows-the Jnani. Such was the exalted position of the Jnani that when Vyasa set out to compose the Mahabharata, Lord Ganapati himself acted as his scribe.

3.Poets saw the higher truths obscured by the stream of daily life, its cares and concerns, its toil and tears. They tried to raise the human mind to higher realms.

"The rest may reason and welcome. It is we musicians know"

says Browning. We may easily read 'poets' for musicians!

The poets see something the ordinary person misses. As Blake says, the poets

".......And see the opening morn,  
Image of truth new-born
Doubt is fled & clouds of reason 
Dark disputes & artful teazing."

Again,

"Hear the voice of the Bard! Who present, past and future sees; Whose ears have heard The holy word."

4. Every generation has been nurtured and sustained by inspired poetry. It is only with the rise of the material,commercial culture that poetry has lost its importance and become - "my shame in crowds, my solitary pride"- as Oliver Goldsmith wrote in 1770. The present age "has mistaken comfort for civilisation" as Lewis Mumford told us, and made us all seekers of vulgar pleasure (where ere long "the toiling pleasure sickens into pain") and cheap entertainment, forgetting the age old quest for the Good, Beauty and Truth, where the ancient Greeks were our grand kinsmen.

5.In the whole history of mankind, there is no higher Truth than that recorded in the Veda and its allied literature, and no poetry more sublime than our Upanishads and the Gita. There is also a vast store of religious and secular poetry in all Indian languages. But such is the spirit of the times that our own people neglect them, especially after Independence. Less and less people of the younger generation get exposed to this great treasure. Very few choose to study them as a main subject, or even on their own.

6. Indians have been learning English  through the school system since 1836. An important part of studies was language and literature. Generations of young Indians got to learn English literature and know about their poets and study their poetry. Many of them acquired great taste and proficiency for English poetry and felt admiration for Shakespeare and Milton, Wordsworth and Coleridge, Blake and Keats, Tennyson and Pope,Browning and Shelley and their exalted train and even felt a deep bond with them. But in recent years, emphasis has shifted from "liberal education" to the hard sciences and social sciences. Language study has become incidental.The semester system ensures that the students do not have to remember anything beyond the next test or exam. The art of learning poems by heart has almost disappeared.

7. In my college days, I had to study something of Shakespeare and some English poets. My teachers , more than just teaching the prescribed portions, planted in me the love of poetry and desire to learn more. Excellent anthologies were available like Palgrave's Golden Treasury, Mentor Book of Major British Poets, An Anthology of Longer Poems by Moles and Moon, etc. But it was not easy to follow the poems and appreciate their full beauty, in the absence of detailed notes and explanations. Recent years have seen many more excellent anthologies and learned expositions by great scholars. The advent of the Net has also transformed  the scene. So many dedicated souls are providing so much information and guidance. And their tribe keeps increasing!

8.Here in this blog I desire to share with like-minded lovers of poetry some of the poems which I have read and enjoyed over the last 50 years. I am not a professional scholar or formal student of literature. My idea of literature is rather old fashioned- that it is a mirror on all aspects of life and also its mentor, and not the limited view that modern academics advocates- that it has  to do  merely with words and language, the  aesthetics of word usage, distinct from other disciplines.I consider a well written book on any subject to be good literature- be it Peter Drucker on Management, or The General Theory of Keynes,  or The Life Divine of Sri Aurobindo,no less than A.C.Bradley on Shakespeare or English Poetry and Dr.Johnson's writings on the English poets. Chesterton's 'Orthodoxy' and 'Heretics' will qualify in my view as literature, no less than his Father Brown stories. Benjamin Jowett's translation of Plato is literature, no less than translations of Rumi by Coleman Barks. Shakespeare is no insignificant  philosopher for being a poet and playwright.

9.The poems I select reflect my liking and taste. Why do I call them great? Because of their adherence to or advocacy of Good, Beauty, Truth (Others may of course have other criteria). These are universal and not limited to any time or clime. Fashions and fads come and go, but universal values remain. Great minds think alike and we will wonder how alike indeed they are when the English poets echo our own thoughts and sentiments. Great poetry is one which reminds us of our own humanity and potential for divinity.

10. "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever",declared Keats.I hope these poems will spread joy and goodwill around. Great poetry constitutes "lifelong fountain of innocent and exalted pleasure" (Palgrave) Poetry where "words dance", "words sing"  (C.Day Lewis) makes our hearts sing too!I invite friends to share this beauty and spread this joy.

Sarve bhavantu sukhina:

Sarve santu niramaya:

Sarve bhadrani pasyantu

Ma kaschit dukha bagh bhaved.

May all beings be happy!

May all beings be free of illness!

May all beings be bestowed will all good!

May no being be touched by suffering!

May peace and plenty reign everywhere!