A Note On Frost's Poem "After Apple-Picking"

 

                              

                             

The rural New England forms a common setting for many of Frost’s poems. This poem also describes the dreamy experiences of an apple-picker after his hard day’s work of picking apples is over. Just like in other poems, this poem is also filled with deep, subtle meanings about sleep and death. This poem is included in “North of Boston” published in 1914.

The apple-picker felt drowsy and dreamy after his work. The water in the trough froze into a pane of glass. He looked at the apple trees through a sheet of frozen ice he picked from the water trough. The grass appears hoary or frosty. He wonders whether it is a normal end of the day or something deeper. It is the winter time. The scent of apples makes him feel strange and drowsy. The apple-picker’s day is over but the task of apple-picking is not yet complete. The barrel has not yet been filled with apples.

 It seems as if the speaker were in a state of confused state of mind because of the onslaught of sleep that sent him into a trance in which everything seemed to have been blurred. “I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight.” The sheet of ice in his hand melted and he allows it to fall down as he is on the verge of falling asleep. In this sleepy state, his dream comprises “an exaggerated re-creation of the sensations of apple-picking” he had done during the day.

 “Magnified apples appear and disappear/Stem end and blossom end/And every fleck of russet showing clear. “Apples of an enlarged size appear and disappear everywhere. The speaker sees even the tiniest apples and their colours in his dream. “My in step arch not only keeps the ache/It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.” His feet felt not only pain but also the pressure of the ladder-round. “I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.” As he picks apples, the boughs bend down and with their movement the ladder also seems to sway. A picturesque description of his day’s labour in his dream is given. From the cellar-bin he hears the rumbling sound of carts carrying “load on load of apples.” There are so many apples to admire, to touch, to pick and to lift carefully so as not to let them fall down on the ground and get bruised. If the apples fall down on the ground, they are discarded even if they are not bruised or spiked with stubble. They are set aside to be used for making cider and not fit to be sold as fruits. “But I am done with apple-picking now.” As he has done enough apple-picking, he feels exhausted and seems to be fed up with the bumper harvest that he does not want to have anything more with the apples.

 In the concluding lines he guesses as to what will trouble his sleep. His sleep may be troubled by the thought or awareness of reality. He contrasts his human sleep with the long winter sleep of wood chuck untroubled by reality. “Is it a simple sleep or the sleep of death?” The poet guesses whether his sleep resembles the long sleep of woodchuck or just an ordinary sleep of human beings. Frost’s use of a long sleep seems metaphorically suggestive of the long sleep of death or of the shift into the afterlife, as it differs from a human sleep. But Laurence Perrine argues that “whatever sleep it is,” it presents “a continuation of earthly activity”. Either way, this farmer is “done with apple-picking now” as the “Essence of winter sleep is on the night.”

 The harvest of apples can be read as a harvest of human effort.  The poem focuses on the fevered hallucinations of a tired person who is about to leave the world of reality and tries to escape into the world of long sleep but his sleep is troubled by the day-long labour of picking the harvest. The sleep of the wood chuck is the long winter sleep associated with death. The apple-picker’s day is over but the task of apple-picking is not yet complete. The barrel has not been filled with apples. The apples left on the tree represent things he regrets for not having done or achieved during his life time. The act of apple-picking is an extended metaphor which represents the speaker’s longing to escape from the worldly troubles by entering a world of dreams where those troubles are non-existent. The ladder signifies the speaker’s climb through life towards death or final end. The “two- pointed ladder” is also considered as life and human career which is similarly difficult to balance

 The poet repeatedly used the word “sleep” to express man’s innate desire for long sleep free from worldly troubles. The repetition of the word “sleep” highlights the speaker’s gradual descent into dreaming. 'After Apple Picking' by Robert Frost has often been compared to Keats' "Ode to Autumn", as if it were primarily a celebration of the harvest. But its elevated diction (quite distinct from anything else in the book) as well as its images, mood, and theme, all suggest a greater affinity with Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale." The apple-picker in Frost’s “After Apple Picking”, like Keats, is suffused with drowsy numbness, yet enters the visionary state necessary to artistic creation; Like Keats, the speaker has a secret longing to escape from the world of reality and enter the realm of death or like woodchuck enjoy “a long winter sleep” unperturbed by worldly troubles.

Robert Frost used rhyme that follows no set pattern. It is basically in iambic pentameter but variation in line-length is seen. The poem’s shorter lines of (two, three and four feet in each line) serve to syncopate and sharpen the steady, flowing rhythm of pentameter. Both rhyme and line-length are varied with subtlety. The wandering structure allows Frost to emphasize the sense of moving between waking and dream-like states.

 Frost’s use of different tenses and the unworldly tone of the poem with mixed up rhyme add to the drowsy world of slumber where time looks blurred experienced through a sheet of ice. He wants that the rhythm of his poem mirrors the state of mind of the speaker.   The poet explores the relationship between human and natural worlds.  In this poem the poet also deals with the theme of life and death. 

In another shorter poem “Unharvested” the poet gives a sensuous description of an apple tree the fruits of which have fallen themselves on the ground forming “one circle of solid red.” The poet passing by the way was attracted by the scent of fallen apples and thought that enjoying the smell of ripe apples on the ground does not amount to theft. The apple tree, unburdened of its load of apples, swayed as lightly “as a lady’s fan”. The poet subtly suggests that Nature is always liberal and transcends man’s selfish plans. He also refers to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve who were expelled from Eden for tasting the forbidden apple of knowledge with a greedy ambition to become equal to almighty God.  The poet concludes that Nature’s designs always surpass the narrow and selfish intentions of man.  Though this poem though resembles a sonnet, it has quite different rhyme scheme (abacbcdadeedff) with different line lengths.

“After apple-picking” is one of the widely-read and popular poems of Robert Frost. It is neither a narrative poem in blank verse nor a dramatic dialogue. It is a nature-lyric depicting the experience of an apple-picker who is tired after the day’s hard work and falls asleep absorbed in the lap of dreams about his day’s hard work. There is a fine blend of illusion and reality in this poem. The poet describes objects realistically and sensuously. All descriptions are vivid and concrete based on poet’s own observation. Physical states like fatigue, drowsiness and mental states like the strangeness of the apples seen through a sheet of ice are nicely depicted. Reality and dream states are vividly described. 

This is a poem of reality which has the enchantment of a lingering dream. Themes like life, death and the fall of man are subtly described with deep layers of meaning. The theme of apples symbolically suggests man’s desire for knowledge in the garden of Eden that led to his downfall. The word “Ladder” refers to man’s efforts to reach his goal. It also refers to the ladder that Jacob saw in his vision in which God promises Jacob that he and his descendants will be given the land of Jerusalem. Thus, this poem is filled with deep layers of meaning portraying the feelings of a person gradually sinking into dream-world after being exhausted with day’s hard work. John T. Napier calls this as Frost’s ability “to find the ordinary a matrix for the extraordinary.” In this respect, he is often compared Emily Dickinson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, in whose poetry, too, a simple fact, object, person, or event will be transfigured and take on greater mystery or significance. 

                 ******************************        

     9th September, 2021                                Somaseshu Gutala                     

 

A Note on Robert Frost (1874-1963) Part--I

                                

      

Robert Frost is one of the greatest American poets who expressed the American life and natural beauty in a simple typical style through conventional verse. Frost was born on march 26^th,1874 in San Francisco. His father was of New England region and his mother was a Scot woman. When Frost was eleven, his father, working as a head master, died. He attended Dartmouth College in New England. In 1892 he left his studies and did various jobs. In 1895 he married his classmate, Elinor White. In 1897 he joined Harvard to continue his studies. In 1899 he left again. He did shoe-making, edited a country newspaper, worked as a teacher at Pinkerton Academy from 1905 to 1911, and finally worked in his grandfather’s farm near Derry.

As a man who worked in various professions, Frost captured the experiences and feelings of common man in his simple conversational style; yet there is depth of meaning with symbolic undertones beneath his simple use of language. He was known for “his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech” and “for using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes.”

In 1912 he went to England and made friendship with Edward Thomas, a famous poet. He published “A Boy’s Will” a collection of poems in 1913. According to Edward Thomas these poems are revolutionary because they lack the exaggeration of rhetoric. In 1914 Frost published “North of Boston” which brought him name and fame. He returned to America in 1915 and taught at Amherst College. His other famous works are: Mountain Interval (1916), New Hampshire (1924) and West Running Brook (1928). In 1924 he won Pulitzer Prize for his poetic collection “New Hampshire”. In 1957 he was awarded Honorary degrees from Cambridge and oxford. Frost won Pulitzer Prizes three more times again in 1931 for “Collected Poems”, in 1937 for “A Further Range” and in 1943 for “A Witness Tree” respectively. During his life time he was conferred 44 honorary degrees by various institutions. John Kennedy described him as “the best poet of our time.”

 As a regional poet of New England, more particularly of New Hampshire,  Frost used realistic themes with a broader perspective. Though his descriptions, speech, rhythms and vocabulary are regional, he discovered universal truths in memorable characters in every poem. Wisdom comes distilled from experience processed by insight. Though he is a regional poet, his regional slant has a universal appeal. In this sense he is not a regional poet but is a metaphysical poet in the tradition of Emerson and Emily Dickinson. But his imagery is less complex and his style is more lucid. Frost confessed that poetry to him was essentially dramatic. 

Though like Wordsworth he wrote pastoral poetry, it is not decorative like that of Virgil. Frost defined poetry as “a connection of two things in verse” and as “inclusion of mind and emotions”, something similar to metaphysical concept of “fusion of intellect and emotion”. For him a poem begins with delight and ends in wisdom. It is “a clarification of life”. “The poet is essentially an accidental collector of impressions.” Frost believed in the fusion of form and content. He was not a believer in the saying that art should teach. He believed in endless experimentation in form and content. Regarding his deceptive simplicity, Geoffrey Moore said,” Frost’s poetry is deeper and tougher than it seems.”

As an American poet Frost depicted the pastoral and rural life of America in a sensitive manner. Like Whitman he was concerned with brotherhood and fellowship of man and democracy. Though he is a new England poet, he added universal meaning to his regional themes. Though he is not a visionary like Wordsworth or Shelley, his message is that we should love our work, help our fellowmen, understand their views, accept our limitations, face the life fearlessly, make the best use of our energies and skills, and above all have faith in God and not feel lonely in the world. Elizabeth Jennings noted that there is an almost total absence of despair or pessimism in Frost’s poetry. 

As a Nature poet Frost described Nature in relation to man. His descriptions of Nature are not idealized pictures, but realistic ones. In his view man has to face hardships and challenges in Nature with courage and live with dignity and fortitude. He made rural new England an artistic medium to express the alienation of modern man. Man is helplessly alone in an indifferent universe. Frost brings to our attention the terrible things of human life. Nature is ambivalent to him. A variety of emotions are aroused on different occasions by Nature. He draws his images from Nature which he observed carefully in all its moods and seasons. 

Frost’s treatment of mankind is based on realism, variety in his characters represents different aspects of man’s life. He lets his characters speak freely. A sense of alienation, fear and uncertainty and loneliness are revealed in his characters. A dismal and helpless picture of the common folk against the aggressive urban civilization is poetically picturized. That is the main reason why Lionel Trilling finds a terrifying picture of life in frost’s poems beneath their apparent simplicity and innocence. Yet most of his characters are brave and heroic in the face of adverse situations. Frost looks on the rural characters with a humorous, ironic and sympathetic detachment. He used the speech of common folk. There are philosophical undertones behind his simple use of language. He employs provincialisms. His poems show variety in attitude and approach. Like Yeats and Auden he handled a great number of English meters. His verse is smooth cadenced and flows with ease without any artificial decoration. Regarding his style and diction Frost believed that poetry is derived from common speech. New England speech rhythms and simple diction are used in his poetry. 

His long dramatic poems reproduce with amazing faithfulness the speech and sentiments of the people. (e.g.: “West-running Brooke, “The Death of the Hired man”, “Home-Burial etc.) His vocabulary and syntax are also simple. His allusions and images are derived from common life. He adopts a conversational tone and offers aphoristic wisdom in his poems. Frost’s long poems are studies in various characters. His use of blank verse is suitable for “poetry of talk.” It is a fit vehicle for expression of deep thoughts and feelings. It has the power to blend observation and imagination. It re-enacts the movement of thought in a dramatic way with conversational ease. There is an undercurrent of psychological analysis beneath his light, playful tone. His dramatic dialogues are not rhetorical speeches but short clipped and meaningful ones. They are comparable to dramatic, character-analyzing speeches of Chaucer and Robert Browning. The use of New England speech rhythms with simple diction in loose blank verse gives a spontaneous and realistic touch to his long poems. The abrupt breaks and broken syntax reveal the inner workings of mind with all its moods and reflections.

 According to John E. Lynen "Frost's regionalism is both symbolic and creative."  "Like Faulkner Frost stands forth as both the interpreter and the representative of his regional culture. "He uses New England as a means of revealing what is universal rather than merely local. frost's rural world is interesting because it symbolizes the world, we ourselves know. Our main concern must be to discover how he has shaped his world as an image of everyman's experience." According to Marion Montgomery "His best poetry is concerned with the drama of man in Nature." According to Louis Untermeyer, Frost's poetry lives with a particular liveliness because it expresses living people. "They are drawn with affection but not with a blurring sentimentality."   

              *******************************

 

          28th July, 2021                                                    Somaseshu Gutala

     

 

 

     

A Note on Robert Frost’s “Birches”

              

  

This famous poem “Birches” was published in Frost’s third collection “Mountain interval” in 1916. Frost wrote this poem in 1913-1914 which appeared first in “Atlantic monthly” in the August issue of 1915. Frost was inspired by Lucy Larcom’s poem “Swinging on a birch tree” and also by his childhood experience of swinging on birches, a simple game played by many boys of new England region. Originally Frost named his poem “Swinging Birches” and published it in 1916. Lucy Larcom (1824-1893) in her poem described the thrill of swinging on birches  (a popular game for children in countryside) using many apt comparisons and metaphors. This poem was published in 1867 in “Childhood Songs”. The opening lines are “Swinging on a birch tree/To a sleepy tune/Hummed by all the breezes/In the month of June.” The moving leaves make a sound like the “dancing drops of a brook on pebbles”. The boys swinging on birches will feel happy like sailors rocking on a mast flying towards the sky which looks “like a wild blue eye.” The oriole (a song bird) too making a jolly whistling sound looks like a sailor in its hanging nest (hammock) on the top of the elm tree. “Up and down, we see-saw/Down into the grass,” which with scented fern and rose buds seems like a soft velvety carpet below their feet. “Swinging on a birch tree/ This is summer joy? / Fun for all vacation/ Don’t you think so Boy? / Up and down, we see-saw/ Merry and at ease/Careless as a brook is/ idle as the breeze.” Though this poem describes the pleasures of swinging, we do not find any deeper levels of meaning as the poem is meant only for children. But Frost  gives a sensuous description of birches in winter in the first part of the poem. The second part is reflective in content with symbolic interpretation.

 On seeing the bent branches of birches, Frost thinks that some boy might have been swinging them but later he realizes that the ice storms had bent the branches “loaded with ice” on a sunny winter morning after a rain. The boy remembers his boyhood experience and wishes that the birches might have been bent down by some boy instead of the ice-storm. 

 The snow-covered branches make a cracking sound as the ice crystals break and are scattered all over the ice-covered floor like heaps of broken glass. Under the sunlight they shine with many colours as if a dome of heaven had fallen. The bent tree branches with trailing leaves spread all over the ground appear "like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair/Before them over their heads to dry in the sun." The poet uses this beautiful image to express his love of Nature in a very sensuous manner. A highly sensory description of freezing and thawing of ice and the reality of winter is seen. The stanza abounds in many figures of speech like alliteration (“cracks and crazed”) , onomatopoeia (click, shattering, cracks) and use of sibilance (“soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells”). The use of present participle forms and enjambment (verse flowing from one line another line) captures the unstoppable momentum of the melting ice. (“shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust”). A poetic language is used to describe a scientific phenomenon. The first twenty lines are largely devoted to description of the effect of ice-storms on the birches.

 Though the poet knows the truth, still he prefers the imagination of a boy swinging and bending the branches. He felt a sense of triumph in subduing those branches. As a boy, he used to climb carefully up to the top branch and suddenly press the branch down with force to bend it to the ground with a swishing sound in the air.  As a boy he was a swinger of branches and now in a nostalgic mood wishes to be so whenever he becomes weary of the world and when life becomes confused “like a pathless wood” covered with cobwebs and when he feels the blows as if unseen branches strike against his face with a lashing movement causing his eye to weep with burning. The images “cobwebs” and “twigs” show the complex, discomforting and painful nature of worldly life.  The poet used a very simple but appropriate image to bring out the sorrows and uncertainty of worldly life.

 The poet remembers the skill required to climb the branches to the top and swish “kicking his way down through air to the ground.” It requires much caution and care to do so just like one has to fill the cup up to the brim or above the brim. There is a limit to which the boy can climb the tree and he has come down after some time. Maintaining balance is of great importance in life. There is a limit to what a cup can hold and there is a limit to which the boy can climb a tree.

In this poem the act of swinging on birches is symbolically represented as a way to escape from the harsh realities or truth of the adult world. The boy climbs the tree as if he is climbing toward heaven to a place where he can be free. But he has to come back again because the earth is the right place for love. So man is like a swinger of branches leaving this world for a while, and coming back again. Thus the poet reveals his love for humanity and the and the world in spite of uncertainty and unexpected troubles. 

 This sense of Romantic escape from earthly burdens is seen in the poems of many poets of the Romantic age. John Keats in his famous poem “Ode to a nightingale” wishes to escape from “the weariness, the fever and the fret” of realistic world “where but to think is full of sorrow and leaden-eyed despairs” into the joyful world of nightingale on wings of imagination. But his flight is not sustained for long. He is dragged back to his real world as he says that fancy is “a deceiving elf.” In his famous ode “On a Grecian Urn” the poet tries to enter the immortal world of beauty and art which later turns out to be a “cold pastoral” lacking in life and dynamic change. On the other hand, William Wordsworth in his poem “To a sky lark” shows the bird as a wise minstrel which flies but never roams away from home. It is “true to the kindred points of heaven and home.” Frost, too like Wordsworth, finds intimate connection to earth in spite of worldly troubles and tribulations.

 Frost highlights the narrator’s regret that he can no longer become a swinger of branches because he is an adult and he cannot leave his responsibilities behind. In fact, the narrator is not able to enjoy the imagined view of a boy swinging on the birches. He is forced to accept the truth that the bends are caused by winter storms and not by a boy swinging on them. The poet’s wish to re-enact his childhood experience of swinging on the branches and climbing towards heaven to escape from the rational world remains inconclusive. The freedom of imagination is appealing and wondrous but the narrator still cannot avoid returning to the earth and bearing his responsibilities in life. The imaginative escape is only a temporary phase. 

This poem was written in blank verse with a particular emphasis on “the sound of the sense.” Frost describes the cracking of ice crystals on the moving branches, selecting similar sounding syllables to match with the meaning: “soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells/Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust.” To produce the sounds of swinging birches the poet uses repetition of sibilant “s” sound: “I should prefer to have some boy bend them.”

 Written in a conversational language the poem moves between the imagination and reality. The earth, though not perfect, is a better place for going on. The poet shows an agnostic approach when he views heaven as a fragile concept when he says “the inner dome of heaven had fallen.” This poem is a nostalgic celebration of youthful joy juxtaposing boyhood pleasures and carefree life with worldly troubles and worries of adult life. The use of contrast is seen throughout the poem as seen in use of words like: black/white, ideal/real, heat/cold, old age/adolescence, fact/fiction etc. He draws a comparison between the straighter and darker trees with the arched trunks of birches with trailing leaves on the ground. The truth of the boy swinging the birches serves as an antidote to the matter-of -fact truth of the ice-storms.

 The poet seems to suggest that limits of the real world must exist as a basis in order to enjoy the imaginative world. The poet thinks that life is beautiful and more tangible than momentary pleasures of heaven. The poet makes it clear that neither is he an escapist nor is he espousing escapism to get away from the rigors of life which demand duty and entrusts responsibilities. Rather what he desires is a brief respite from the harsh realities of existence. The poet wishes to climb the birch tree and momentarily transcend the monotony of life. Once he swings on the birches, the cobwebs of existence quit like ice crystals on the tree when the sun is up. The moment of ecstasy going beyond oneself is an imaginative act. The leap of imagination must yield finally to the conditions of reality. Viewed from this angle the poem becomes a commentary on the relationship between life, truth and art. Imagination cannot live outside the world.  The poet desires to go beyond fact and reality but does not wish to raze the truth of birches like an ice-storm. Structurally “Birches” is a poem with no stanza breaks. This gives the poem a free, flowing tone enhanced with the use of enjambment.

Some critics like Alvarez deny Frost as a nature poet and confirm his role as a rural or country poet who describes nature with objective reality. “He is a country poet whose business is to live with Nature rather than through Nature. --- he is essentially a poet of pastures and plains, mountains and rivers, woods and gardens, groves and bowers, fruits and flowers, seeds and birds.” Frost himself denied being a nature poet. In his words, “I am not a Nature poet… there is always a person in my poems.” Yet we can fully feel the poet’s affection to nature’s beauty and grace.

According to some critics “Birches” is one of the poems that begins with insight and finishes with joy. The poetry of Frost does not raise and resolve questions. He explores problems and examines alternatives rather than taking sides between conflicts. Robert Frost uses Nature as a background to illustrate people’s psychological struggles with everyday life. His poems are usually observations on Nature and proceed to the human situations such as loneliness, helplessness, confusion, isolation and indifferent conditions.

Frost has a tendency to philosophize but is free from didacticism. It has been explained by Lewis in these words, “He is a serious moralist as well as a serious artist; but his peculiar intimacy with nature prevents him from being openly didactic: He teaches, like nature, in parables: sometimes merely presenting a picture, a mood, a narrative, and leaving you to draw your own conclusions, never permitting himself more than the tender, humorous sort of comment we find at the end of ‘Birches’.

C.D. Lewis makes the following comment on its rhythm - the upward and downward movement of the rhythm fully reflects the going up to and coming down of the swinger of birches. But when the poet moralizes the rhythm becomes slow.” In the words of Untermeyer, “Birches”, one of Robert Frost’s most widely quoted poems, beautifully illustrates the poet’s power, the power to blend observation and imagination. 

                              *****************************

              12th July,2021                           Somaseshu Gutala

 

 

 

 

 

 

GHOSTS

 

                          

                         

                         

                                               

1)          A ghost I saw at dead of night

      A figment of my crazy fancy you say

      May be a real being to me I say

      With flying snaky coils robed in white

      Inwards what we do feel, take it as right;

      May be, your mind has no deep insight.

 

2)           Ghosts, our crazy creations you may state

      Our guilty fears and fancies in horrid forms

      Our hissing desires disturb our inner calm;

      Our foes whom we bitterly hate

      As if to take revenge assault our brain

      Pricking our conscience with fear and disdain.

 

3)          Departed souls with raging feelings and desires

     So many births passed and still passion-bound

     Linger in weird shapes here on the ground

     Still with unextinguished tongues of fire;

     Still like dusty cobwebs seen here and there

     In dead of night wander these ghoulish nightmares.

 4) With dread distractions our minds they fill

      Unsettling our rest with vicious greed and strain

      Oh, like wild beasts at night they prowl and kill

      Distorting our dreams for their selfish gain.

      Some to evil spirits themselves do sell

       Enslaved at last to stay in perpetual hell.     

 

   5)     Our future ourselves we do presage

       Desires dreamify themselves on mental screen

       Enacting what we wished but have never been

       Caught up in the web of cravings like birds in cage   

       With sights bizarre and utter confusion

       To shake our sleep with puzzling visions.

  6)     In dark, strange worlds unknown we float and flit         

     Crossing bounds of reason beyond our range

     Faces we know seem queer and strange

     We act like crazy souls in feverish fit

          Shocked we fly back with sweating brow

          Confused we rewind of what do not know.

 

7)    Like fabled witches leading men astray

       Lust for wealth corrupts us to the core

            Dissatisfied they crave for more and more

            To grab more wealth, they get out of the way

            Desire for possessions dooms all mankind

            Unseen demons make us wicked and unkind. 

 

8)     More dreadful than fiends and vampires

             Passion for power drags us to lowest plane;

              War perverts our minds, the worst kind of bane;

              No empire stays safe with this devilish desire;

              The greatest knowledge misused leads to greatest fall

               Men turn monsters destroying themselves and all.

 

      9)    Ghosts are nothing but passions gone astray

              They drive us like devils out of our ways.

              No distinction of sex or age they mind                

              Raping and robbing others like pestilence blind;

              They tempt us with their scintillating charms

              Our guilty fears and fancies in horrid forms.

 

10)        Our lurking sins betray with promises false

              Darkness and solitude wakes us with sweating fear

              Mocking fearsome goblins from alien sphere

              Dark dreams make us shudder in sleep and toss;

              Ghosts, ghastly reflections of our inner soul

              Ghosts, dead or living pervert us from our goals.

                         +++++++++++++++++++++++

a) Some to evil spirits --- a reference to Marlow's play " The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus" (1604) in which Dr. Faustus, a well-respected scholar begins his career as a magician and sells his soul to Satan (Lucifer) to get supernatural powers for twenty-four years with the help of another devil, Mephistopheles. After the expiration of  twenty-four years the devil kills him and carries his soul to suffer in hell.           

b)   Like fabled witches leading men astray --- a reference to Shakespeare's play "Macbeth"(1606)  in which Macbeth, a brave Scottish General, was told by three witches that he would be the king of Scotland. Encouraged by his wife, he killed King Duncan and Banquo. Still he felt insecure and became obsessed with guilt. At last he was killed in the battle by Malcolm, one of Duncan's sons.

c) Ghosts are nothing but  ----  Unbridled passions  like anger, revenge, lust, violence, pride, overambition, despair and  too much possessiveness provoke us like unseen ghosts and through us make us do devilish acts just for their enjoyment. No exorcist can drive them away except our patience, careful thinking and discrimination.  We should be more careful about these tempting passions than weird apparitions and phantoms.

                                       *************************

    28th July, 2021                                          Somaseshu Gutala

            

    

    

 

 

 

 

 

      

 

 

 

   

              

  

 

 

SETTING SHADOWS

 

                  

                                                             SETTING SHADOWS

                                                   (The Funny Side Of An Elderly Couple)   

          

1)                 Each enclosed in each one’s own space, we dwell

              Like bats hanging head down from banyan tree

              Each in one corner imprisoned, not so free;

              Stuck in our narrow worlds like frogs in a well

              Old age kept us within her narrow bounds

              We stay together-- apart without sounds;

 

2)                  Her eyes like prying baits do keenly try

               To catch my lapses with an eagle-eye;

               One misstep of mine, they quickly spy

               And pull me down like a bolt from the sky;

               I take my turn too trying to blame

               In her every task, a mind-boggling game.

 

3)                  In my every task she finds some defect

               My hobbies she treats as wasteful pastime

               Looks me down as if I did a serious crime.

               My improper training and gross neglect;             

               She beats me far behind with her culinary skills

               My cooking trials and household work almost nil. 

 

4)                   No job to do except confined to home

               Except to read some news and sip a cup of tea

               A sailor forlorn in God-forsaken Sea

               None to chat with or together roam

               Encaged in silence and time-killing ways

               No fast-paced change but passing idle days.          

 

5)                  My constant presence, an irritating eye-sore

               Sitting like a statue in stagnant state

               All have vanished--my colleagues and my mates;

               My memories lie dusty as in a lumber-store.

               My pitfalls like dead shadows pass

               As if treading on broken bits of glass.

 

6)                 Once we complained about our work too hard

              Doing same thing year after year

              Longing for leisure with full rest and cheer

              Too much spare time now-- how to spend, my God!

              Is there no other way except to curse and cross?

              Is this the way our time to pass? 

 

7)                 As elders we do think too proud of our age

             Our age matures but still our egos bind

              In present knowledge-world we lag behind;

              A hiatus wide leaves us in modern maze;

              Let us move with times; no rigid views; no use;

              Nothing happens on past glories to muse.

 

8)                  Though different seem our views and ways

               Tethered together how can we be apart?

               Restrained we have to adjust like wheels of a cart;

               Time guides us to keep up with even pace;

               Our petty rivalries where will they lead?

                Is it true aversion or overpowering creed?

 

9)                   Whatever they be, our days turn fast

                Our squabbles end in lovely compromise

                Our faults melt like mists at sunrise;

                Our hidden springs of love hold us together fast

                Our ways differ you say, too late to mend

                Something binds us close till our final end.

10)                      Our fault-finding ways lead us no where

               They lead us astray with vindictive rage

               None fault-free, come out of your cage;

               My lapses as mountains to you may seem

               My weak virtues as straws in your esteem;

               Our nagging skills keep us ever apart

               Let us be sympathetic with noble thoughts.       

                          *************************

                 16th July, 2021                 Somaseshu Gutala

    

Note : A funny sketch of an elderly couple with no 

           intention to hurt anyone.         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

                                             

Guide me, Oh Lord!

                                                       

                                       

                                  

The road seems so uncertain with bends unseen

So many shocks and surprises, which way to turn?

So many doubts and questions within me burn

I can’t unravel or grasp what they mean;

On this strange path never have I been;

My mind felt wrinkled with deepest concern;

Guide me, oh Lord! Which way to twist and turn

Vexed with daily routine I lose my mind serene;

Thy help and strong support all I implore;

Unaware of Thy gifts we ask for more;

We deem not as choosers but beggars poor

Our earthly tensions and doubts who can cure?

Our desires like witches drive us into the mire

Only Thy grace can lift us from this dark despair.

                    ****************

        1st July, 2021                         Somaseshu Gutala

  

THE TALE OF SOPHIA, THE STRONG

 

                             

                                ( I )

 

      A stalwart figure tall with manly gait

     With frizzled, brown hair hanging down

     A marching figure with perpetual frown;

     Her dominant looks stern and straight

     Her broad visage not red like diamond mine

     But threatening like burning coal doth shine;

     Though she speaks little, her looks are keen

     She grasps patient’s feelings and pain unseen.

                                    ( I I )

    Her name struck fear in patients’ hearts

    Her words touched them like winged darts;

   And yet her nursing skills impressed a lot

    Though she looked grim, too well she played her part.

    Too punctual is she and hoped the same from others

    In spotless white, she moved with smart, quick pace

   She curbed patients too, in disciplined ways;

   She treated well poor ailing kids and mothers; 

                               ( I I I )

   Her name, Sophia, a wise but stern nature she had.

   When patients cribbed about not getting sleep

   Her thunderous shouts drove them to slumber deep

   She never showed her feelings to make them glad

   If anyone from her any help did seek

   Her looks enough, made them mute and meek;

   She did not like to make patients feel weak

   She never let them chat and loudly speak.

                               ( I V )

   She snubbed them a lot in a bantering style

  “You drink yourself to reach the gates of hell

   Stop writhing in pain”, she used to yell.

   ‘Your lecherous ways spoiled you, creature vile!

   To struggle with filthy diseases dire;

   You cry now wriggling like worms in fire”

   She made them see their sins, she spoke harsh and hard

   And yet she treated all with care in her ward. 

                                      ( V )

   Though Sophia struck terror in patients’ eyes

   And galled them with her stern looks spouting fire

   A noble intention lurks behind her ire;

   She chastened their minds with warnings wise;

   No drunkard dared to look at her again

   No womanizer dared to face her disdain;

   Sophia, loved them all despite her dare-devil face

   A dutiful nurse who saved them from wretched ways.

                         *****************

          19th June, 2021                      Somaseshu Gutala

Note : Many of us may have the experience of meeting serious and sombre medical staff who do not like to entertain us with talk. Yet we are impressed by their sincere and dedicated services, their correct prescription and proper diagnosis. We always remember their valuable advice and their help in our lives.  

                             *****************************