Light and Bright!

                                  Poems and Poets

                   14. Light and Bright!

Must we concentrate only on heavy or didactic poems? Can we not enjoy some lighter moments?

I belong to the old school, brought up on a diet of study and discipline. If in a Catholic college you tried to laugh too often ( in their opinion, that is) or made  a remark out of context, or even made a sound not considered appropriate, you had it! I remember while reading Christabel, when I read aloud the words:

'T is the middle of night by the castle clock,

 And the owls had awakened the crowing cock;

Tu-whit!-- tu-whoo!,

And hark, again! the crowing cock,

How drowsily it crew!,

I could not contain myself. Our lecturer asked us to read the poem aloud. I hailed from a semi rural area, where we heard the crowing cock every morning. When I uttered the words "tu whit, tu whoo'  I tried to imitate the cock and the whole class burst out laughing. But our lecturer  took me to the principal, may be to be on the safer side! The principal was an English father and a lover of literature. He asked me to repeat the performance. When I did, he too burst out laughing, saying if I intended to imitate, I should learn to do it well! He turned to the lecturer, and told him: "Abraham, he only had a little fun. He didn't make any sound behind your back! So, it is o.k." 

     That I was taken to the principal's room, but came back in one piece, and laughing too, was something! I became somebody. But it led to other things! The boys expected me to do more such acts. When we took up Much Ado About Nothing and we came to the poem:

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
   Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea, one on shore,
   To one thing constant never.

Then sigh not so, but let them go,
   And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
   Into hey, nonny,nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no more,
  Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so'
   Since summer first was leafy.

Then sigh not so, but let them go,
  And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
   Into hey,nonny,nonny.



the boys wanted me to 'sing' this! I could not afford to allow my reputation to suffer! I managed to set it to the tune of a Hindi movie song which was then popular ( hai apna dil), and some how made it, but only the first two stanzas!


This was in 1959. Years earlier, I was expelled from the Sanskrit class for trying to read a passage, after the manner of the pandit. I lost the chance to learn the language of the Gods formally in school! Oh, what a great loss to the world of Sanskrit scholarship! 

One can enjoy many lighter moments immersed in poetry. But in those olden days we were taught a verse in Tamil, based on Sanskrit original which said:

Learning is limitless, life is  short.

Even that is reduced by illness and such afflictions.

So, learn with discrimination like the Swan 

Which separates the milk from the water, and takes only the milk.

The swan is a legendary bird in our lore which has this ability. The absence of such discrimination is the accumulation of so much useless information. Which led T.S.Eliot to exclaim:

T.S.Eliot    

From "The Rock"

O perpetual  revolution of configured  stars,

O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,

O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying

The endless cycle of idea and action,

Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;

Brings knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,

All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,

But nearer to death no nearer to God.

Where is the life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries

Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

We wanted to consider something light, but here we are- with something serious! No matter. A great mind like Eliot may trick us to attempt a few lines:

Where is the simplicity we have lost in technology?
Where is the peace we have lost in power?
Where is the value we have lost in utility?
Where is the comfort we have lost in fashion?
Where is the justice we have lost  in law?
Where is the meaning we have lost in modernity?
Where is the innocence we have lost in education?
Where is the education we have lost in schooling?
Where is the God we have lost in religion?
Oh God, where is the humanity we have lost in society?                     
                                                     (R Nanjappa)

 Even great poets at times want to lay aside the serious poets, and take up something light. Let us hear Longfellow.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Day is Done

The day is done, and the darkness

Falls from the wings of Night;......

A feeling of sadness and longing,

  That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

  As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,

  Some simple and heartfelt lay,

That shall soothe  this restless feeling,

  And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,

  Not from the bards sublime,

Whose distant footsteps echo

  Through the corridors of Time.

For like streams of martial music,

  Their mighty thoughts suggest

Life's endless toil and endeavour;

  And tonight I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,

  Whose songs gushed from his heart,

As showers from the clouds of summer

  Or tears from the eye lids start;

Who, through long days of labour

  And nights devoid of ease,

Still heard in his soul the music

  Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet

  The restless pulse of care,

And come like the benediction

  That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume

  The poems of thy choice;

And lend to the rhyme of the poet

  The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be fill'd with music,

  And the cares that infest the day

Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,

  And as silently steal away.

"Music be the food of love", said Shakespeare. Longfellow prescribes the rhyme of the poet clothed in the beauty of the voice as the antidote to sadness. Though he does not want the 'heavy' stuff of the sublime bards, nevertheless, he wants the poetry to  be the product of inspiration- which was heard in the soul of the poet. Oh, yes, if it is not from the soul, it is not poetry, light or heavy. The heart should rule, if not the mind!

Oliver Goldsmith

An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog.

Good people all of every sort,

Give ear unto my song;

And if you find it wondrous short,

It cannot hold you long.

In Islington there was a man

Of whom the world might say,

That still a godly race he ran--

Whenever he went to pray.

A kind and gentle heart he had,

To comfort friends and foes;

The naked every day he clad-

When he put on his clothes.

And in that town a dog was found,

As many dogs there be,

Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,

And curs of low degree.

The dog and man at first were friends;

But when a pique began,

The dog to gain some private ends,

Went mad and bit the man.

Around from all the neighbouring streets

The wondring neighbours ran,

And swore the dog had lost its wits

To bite so good a man.

The wound it seemed both sore and sad

To every Christian eye;

And while they swore the dog was mad, 

They swore the man would die.

But soon a wonder came to light

That showed the rogues they lied-

The man recovered of the bite,

The dog it was that died! 

What do you make of this poem? Man's best friend is not shown in good light here. But then, it bit only when it went mad, but many are the people who bite with their tongues, when perfectly sane! Recent analysts see  the man to be a hypocrite -eg he ran a godly race only when he went to church, or clothed the naked only when he put on his dress. They take the dog as the 'underdogs' of society, who turn bad due to the treatment they get. No poem can be enjoyed as a mere poem now- it has to be interpreted according to Feminism, leftism, Freudism, post-modernism, deconstruction, etc. Poem has become anything but a poem!

Alvin Toffler wrote that delightful book Future Shock over 40 years ago. One of the paradoxes of modern life he pointed out was that while travel in general had become fast ( in terms of miles/hour) the actual time taken for travel for any one within the cities is much more than it used to be- that we actually cover less distance in an hour, and travel slower. I realised this when the new international airport opened in Bangalore. It took three hours  to get to the airport to catch a flight to Chennai, which took just 40 minutes!. We are all engaged in some hurly-burly all the time, but are left with no time for anything! We are in good company!

Thomas L. Masson

When I Get Time

When I get time-

I know what I shall do:

I'll cut the leaves of all my books

And read them through and through.

When I get time-

I'll write some letters then

That I have owed for weeks and weeks

To many, many men.

When I get time-

I'll pay those calls I owe,

And with those bills, those countless bills,

I will not be so slow.

When I get time-

I will regulate my life

In such a way that I may get

Acquainted with my wife.

When I get time-

Oh glorious dream of bliss!

A month, a year, ten years from now-

But I can't finish this- 

I have no more time.

Judged by the Company One Keeps!

Anonymous.

One night in late October,

When I was far from sober,

Returning with my load with manly pride,

My feet began to stutter,

So I lay down in the gutter,

And a pig came near and lay down by my side;

A lady passing by was heard to say:

"You can tell a man who boozes,

By the company he chooses,"

And the pig got up and slowly walked away.

Those of us who have lived three score and ten years have seen lot of changes in every sphere, in wave after mighty wave, simultaneously. As Toffler described, it was a cultural shock. We Indians know of the force of Kala,Time , but theoretically! India at present is alienated from its own ancient self. Not only the forms are crumbling,  even the spirit is departing.

Many of the things which were landmarks or icons, or psychological supports, have gone. Relationships based on mutual personal obligation have gone- it is pure business now. The family  doctor,tailor, grocer, milkmaid, the corner pen-repair or watch repair shop has gone. The school teacher is no more the informal guardian and guide to good conduct. Even the postman is not so visible now. Many services have disappeared- the itinerant workers who would change the roof tiles, mend your umbrella, or some old copper utensil, etc are gone. The steam locomotive used to be a romantic thing-it is now replaced by the electric or diesel  ones. But somethings remain- like the man who comes to your doorsteps and sharpens all your scissors, knives ,etc. But these are now made of stainless steel and have to be thrown away, to be replaced by cheap Chinese imports!.What is gone is not replaced by something lasting or durable. Obsolescence and transience rule everything. Again, as Toffler said, we have instant celebrities, like instant coffee.
 I was trying to get some poems in our vernaculars on these disappearing trades, but could not. But I have two poems in English.

Mary E.Coleridge

The Train.

A green eye -and a red- in the dark,

Thunder- smoke- and a spark.

It is there- it is here- flashed by,

Wither will the wild thing fly?

It is rushing, tearing through the night,

Rending her gloom in its flight.

It shatters her silence with her shrieks,

What is it the wild thing seeks?

Alas! for it hurries away,

Them that are fair to stay.

Hurrah! for it carries home

Lovers and friends that roam.

The last two stanzas are particularly dear- I have experienced what is described there!  How many of us had imagined, on first seeing the train, that there was no job on earth more thrilling than that of the loco driver- the hardened muscles of his hands, coal stain all over, the colourful ( or plain dirty?) scarf tied round his head- all firing our imagination! We used to stand by the track in the village, and salute the driver, boy scout fashion!. Most returned the greeting, with a smile! And in some villages hard hit by water shortage, the goodly driver would stop outside the station, unscheduled, and allow the poor women to collect some water from the engine!

Madeleine Nightingale

The Scissor-Man

Sing a song of Scissor-men.

  "Mend a broken plate,

Bring your knives and garden shears.

  I'll do them while you wait.

Buzz-a-wuzz! Buzz-a-wuzz!

  Fast the wheel or slow.

Ticker Tacker! Ticker Tack!

  Rivets in a row."

Sing a song of Scissor-men,

  Sitting in the sun.

Sing it when the day begins,

  Sing it when it's done.

Be it hard or be it soft,

  Here's a jolly plan;

Sing to make the work go well,

  Like the Scissor-man.

This too is a familiar scene to us. Even now, even in the suburbs of Mumbai, one comes across them. There is a song in a 60-year old Tamil movie on this .I have not been able to get it, and look at the lyrics. Incidentally, the Scissor-man reminds me of the Pedlar of some Louis L'Amour Westerns!

Am I becoming too tied to the past? Am I trying to call back yesterday? By no means. I am only trying to hold on to something of the future. I am not sure what will hold.

G.D.Roberts
New Sights.

I like to see a thing I know
  Has not been seen before,
That's why I cut my apple through
  To look into the core.

It's nice to think, though many an eye
  Has  seen the ruddy skin,
Mine is the very first to spy
  The five brown pips within.


Not that we can stop the world from moving on. But being human, we want to have something familiar all along!

Charles Kingsley
When all the World is Young

When all the world is young,lad,
  And all the trees are green,
And every goose a swan,lad,
  And every lass a queen;
Then hay for boot and horse, lad,
  And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
  And every dog his day.

When all the world is old,lad,
  And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale,lad
  And all the wheels run down;
Creep home and take your place there,
  The spent and maimed among;
God grant you find one face there
  You loved when all was young. 


We are all longing for that one face, which will not change, through all the other changes!

Let our master Shakespeare have the last word.

Shakespeare
The Merry Heart

Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
  And merrily hent the stile-a;
A merry heart goes all the way
  Your sad tires in a mile-a