I love the mystery of life. My vision of the night gives rise to
speculation profound. Poetic snowflakes dot the rooftops and the lines “O What
fun it is ride” stream from some place nearby to the sensitive ear. And the
mind embarks on a serene journey through the Land of Dreams.
Some thoughts flickered through the state of my mind,
reminding me of Thoreau’s immortal lines:
“When
in the still light of the cheerful moon,
On the every twig and rail and jutting spout,
The icy spears were adding to their length
Against the arrows of the coming sun,
How in the shimmering noon of winter past
Some unrecorded beam slanted across
The upland pastures where the Johnwort grew;”
On the every twig and rail and jutting spout,
The icy spears were adding to their length
Against the arrows of the coming sun,
How in the shimmering noon of winter past
Some unrecorded beam slanted across
The upland pastures where the Johnwort grew;”
From behind
the fleece-like clouds, when peeks the morning sun, the warmth of winter
touches every vein. With idle hands trying to peel the orange and the indolence
of waking-up every new morning, Life gets a new colour.
But
somewhere the tunes of Christmas
Bear the
face of Death’s song;
The
sensational poetic lines lose out:
And what lines
can make them live
The Joy Of
Life?
Tears
induced the flow of verse;
But what
verse for them if Life is tears?
The hoar
that lines the morning grass,
The fog that
blinds the vision,
Winter that
evokes the poet within,
Shall not
understand their dire mission.
It’s
bizarre that merciless Winter could serve as an object of Poetry. Or the
melodrama of Winter could be so harsh.
Robert
Frost’s beautiful lines pose but a very poignant situation in Winter:
“And slept. The log that
shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed
him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy
breathing, but still slept.
One aged man — one man —
can’t keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if
he can,
It’s thus he does it of a
winter night.”
But the timeless words by Walter
De La Mare:
“The rayless
sun,
The day’s
journey done,
Sheds its
last ebbing light
On fields in
leagues of beauty spread
Unearthly
white.”
Are but the
sweetest of all.
