Completed morning program. Visited RML Hospital and CGHS. In
chamber from 1.30 pm to 4 pm. On the eve of the New year two batch mates have
sent us two poems. Both depict life differently. Let me reproduce them.
When the traveler departs
The day that begins at rosy dawn
The year
is dying in the night;
Ring
out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out
the old, ring in the new,
Ring,
happy bells, across the snow:
The year
is going, let him go;
Ring out
the false, ring in the true.
Ring out
the grief that saps the mind
Ends in the gloom of dusk;
The year that begins
With bloom of flowers in Spring
Ends in the cold and frosty Winter
–
The spirit sags, the clock unwinds,
The dying year brings
Thoughts of death to my mind.
A melancholy smile flickers on my
face
To think that one of these days
This pad I call my home, the bed,
My clothes in the wardrobe,
Books I had loved, others yet
unread,
Neatly staked in the shelves,
My work desk, the computer
Containing articles and books
I wrote and prided on,
Others yet half written,
The watches and pens I prized,
Gifted by people who loved me,
Money in the wallet and the bank,
Things, all things I called mine
(It’d rend my heart to lose them),
Shall be left behind as they are,
While I’d be gone, gone far
Where these mean nothing to me.
Why I fussed over them beats me!
We act and behave
As if we’d stay on for ever,
And take our possessions to heart;
We forget it’s but a brief sojourn,
And possessions are as insubstantial
As a dream, when the traveler
departs.
December 31, 2012
Ram Varma
|
Tennyson's poem
Ring out, wild
bells, to the wild
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring
out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the
new,
Ring, happy bells, across the
snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the
true.
Ring out the grief that saps the
mind,
For those that here we see no
more,
Ring out the feud of rich and
poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party
strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the
sin,
The faithless coldness of the
times;
Ring out, ring out thy mournful
rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place
and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and
right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul
disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of
gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of
old,
Ring in the thousand years of
peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart the kindlier
hand;
Ring out the darkness of the
land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
b n makhija
|
I don't know with whom I should
agree. I would rather go with Tennyson.
Retired to
sleep at 005 hrs on 01.01.2013.