Words

I rummaged through the shelves in my room today, looking for nothing in particular. Sometimes mindless activities can be quite therapeutic on days when your brain is working overtime on myriad thoughts that your mind can't cope with.

I found a whole bunch of old, useless things still lying on my shelf when they should have made their way into the dustbin years ago...an old, broken mouse, old visiting cards, a plastic bull(toy), cut-out articles from newspapers and magazines and a very old diary.

I let most of the things stay where I found them(I plan to clean my shelf and deal with them soon) and crawled into bed with my old diary. I'd forgotten its existence and as I flipped through the yellowed pages, I found myself smiling....the diary dated back to 1993 to a time when I regularly maintained a dairy and penned my thoughts before going to bed everyday....My diary was my confidant, and to it I would narrate stories about crushes and heartaches, disappointments and joy...all the little things on a 15 year old's mind. The diary was witness to the many poems I wrote about life, pets, friends....poems that I never shared with anyone barring my grandmother who patiently listened to every single one of them.

On 1st Dec '93, in a very pensive mood, I penned a poem I called 'Words'. Here it is...

Think before you say something

Think before you say anything

'cause the time can arise when you'll regret

your thoughtless words that made you lose a friend.

Words are powerful, words are strong.

They can build a wall, they can tear it down.

They can make you cry, they can make you smile.

They can build a bond, they can create a fight.

Careless words may wound the heart,

so every word must be given a thought.

A wound in the heart only words can heal.

So remember, words are a big deal!!

Choose your words with great choice

They will give you poise in life.

A Psalm of Life -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I was browsing the Internet for something else and I chanced upon what used to be(and still is) one of my favourite poems while I was a student.

We used to have oral exams for English Poetry back in school. The teacher would pick a few poems that all students had to learn by heart. On the day of the exams, your luck and the little chit of paper you picked would decide which poem you would have to recite in front of the entire class.

We studied Wordsworth, Blake, Frost, Tennyson, Shakespeare, Longfellow....

Of all the poems I've memorised some poems have stayed with me forever.

This is one of them....


Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,--act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Mirage

I float down life’s river to a destination without a name
Think I’ve lost the plot, don’t remember how to play the game
Drifting along the river, suddenly by my side
Another lonely traveler, he wants to share the ride

Where have you been, I have waited..
For the twisted hand of fate to usher you into my life

Lost and Found. Lost although I’ve found him
He’s a mirage and I’m the desert sun.
Shining on when he’s not there,
Shining on when he’s not there.

Tiger, tiger, burning bright!!

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
(William Blake)