Poetry at its best

Today is a Wednesday..The second of June,2010. I got up with this sudden pang for poetry partly triggered by my writer's block( Yeah that's what I'm calling my long absence as), buried away in the subconscious. I do not know why or how but I had this sudden urge to read poetry. I began with one of my favourite poems in high school - " The tiger" by William Blake. I'm astonished at the depth I'm now able to see in those lines. It's amazing when you take into account the hidden meanings conveyed through a string of words and to make them sound poetic! Back in school, I've always remembered the funny way the poem started " Tiger tiger burning bright, in the forests of the night!" . Almost like a nursery rhyme where I imagine myself holding the hem of my school uniform, chanting in chorus with an amused expression on my face! I remember my high school English Mam who actually brought a "soft toy"( Read as Tiger) to the class. Can't blame her futile efforts to get us involved in appreciating the poem. Maybe this was partly the reason why I remember the poem so vividly. Back then, it was just a nice poem with an easy essay answer. "Attemptable" ! Reading it post 20, I begin to understand what people meant when they said " Reading between the lines" ! I salute William Blake for his sheer brilliance in the choice of words! As I was reading the "Tiger", I remembered one another poem which had been my favourite in secondary school(precisely class IX). My memory can surprise me at times! This poem is about an experience at the dentists'- " This is going to hurt just a little bit - Ogden Nash". Hilarious, witty lines which somehow managed to rhyme properly!A wonderful read, especially when you have nostalgic experiences at a dentists'. Next in line is another favourite of mine. A little more mature poem (Yeah..I was hitting the 20's when I discovered this poem). It's an elegy written by Alfred Lord Tennyson in honor of his best friend Arthur Hallam. Again, beautiful lines and a classic ending! The poem is pretty emotional. It isn't witty or descriptive like the other two poems. But it has enough substance to moisten your eyes. That's it for my poetry spree today. I'm pasting the poems here - strictly for the interested.


1)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
1757-1827

2)THIS IS GOING TO HURT JUST A LITTLE BIT

One thing I like less than most things is sitting in a dentist chair with my mouth wide open.

And that I will never have to do it again is a hope that I am against hope hopan.

Because some tortures are physical and some are mental,

But the one that is both is dental.

It is hard to be self possessed

With your jaw digging into your chest,

so hard to retain calm

When your fingernails are making serious alterations in your life line or love line or some other important line in your palm,

So hard to give your ususal cheerful effect of benignity

When you know your position is one of the two or three in life most lacking in dignity

And your mouth is like a section of road that is being worked on

And it is cluttered up with stone crushers and concrete mixers and drills and steam rollers and there isn't a nerve on your head that aren't being irked on.

Oh some people are unfortunate to be worked on by thumbs,

And others have things done to their gums,

And your teeth are supposed to being polished

But you have reason to believe they are being demolished.

And the circumstances that adds to your terror

Is that it's all done with a mirror,

Because the dentist may be a bear, or as the Romans used to say, only they were referring to a feminine bear when they said it, an ursa,

But all the same how can you be sure when he takes his crowbar in one hand and mirror in the other he won't get mixed up, the way you do when try to tie a bow tie with the aid of a mirror, and forget that left is right and vice versa

And then at last he says, That will be all, but it isn't because he then coats your mouth from cellar to roof

With something I suspect is generally used to put shine a horse's hoof,

And you totter to your feet and think, Well it's over now and after all it was only this once,

And he says come back in three monce.

And this O Fate, is I think the most vicious that thou ever sentest,

That Man has to go continually to the dentist to keep his teeth in good condition

When the chief reason he wants his teeth to be in good condition is so that he won't have to go the dentist.

- Ogden Nash


3) In Memoriam A.H.H.

I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods;

In envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth:
Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'T is better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all.

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)