Came across this poem today that I had to memorize back in school (Class 6). Memories came flooding back! Thought I'd share it with you...You too could go ahead and post the ones that make you reminisce the good ol' days.


"Sea-Fever"

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.


By John Masefield (1878-1967).
(English Poet Laureate, 1930-1967.)

here's the one which i haven't forgotten a word of and probably won't for the rest of my life. i was in standard 1, and they (teachers) made me sing in front of parents and guests in the auditorium hall in kamladi (forgot it's name :(.....)during a "Parent's Night" ...

:P

prelude..........



twinkle, twinkle, little star,
how I wonder what you are.
up above the world so high,
like a diamond in the sky.
twinkle, twinkle, little star,
how I wonder what you are!

((((((music))))))))))))))

when the blazing sun is gone,
when he nothing shines upon,
then you show your little light,
twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
twinkle, twinkle, little star,
how I wonder what you are!

((((((music))))))))))))))

then the traveler in the dark
thanks you for your tiny spark;
he could not see which way to go,
if you did not twinkle so.
twinkle, twinkle, little star,
how I wonder what you are!



ahhhhhhhhhhh...i feel like being kid again. not that i ain't one now :P :D

LooTe

well since the thread has been relegated to nursery rhymes herezz one that I still remember :)

Rock -a-by baby thy cradlezz green
Fatherzz a nobleman, motherzz a queen
and betty'zz a lady and wears a gold ring
and jonny's a drummer and drums for the king!!!!!!

Loots, I'm surprised you remember the whole thing..u must be a kid still :)

HAHAHAHA Sndy...some things in life are not meant to be forgotten i guess :P...even if you seem to have forgotten them, time (present) at times, let you remind of what path--straight and serpentine you came along, no? i have many sweet old memories connected with that nursery rhyme. :D

Oops hahaha...before i become a philosopher, let me do a favor for the readers :)

here's one of my favorites:


Now When The Number Of My Years
by Robert Louis Stevenson.



Now when the number of my years
Is all fulfilled, and I
From sedentary life
Shall rouse me up to die,
Bury me low and let me lie
Under the wide and starry sky.
Joying to live, I joyed to die,
Bury me low and let me lie.

Clear was my soul, my deeds were free,
Honour was called my name,
I fell not back from fear
Nor followed after fame.
Bury me low and let me lie
Under the wide and starry sky.
Joying to live, I joyed to die,
Bury me low and let me lie.

Bury me low in valleys green
And where the milder breeze
Blows fresh along the stream,
Sings roundly in the trees -
Bury me low and let me lie
Under the wide and starry sky.
Joying to live, I joyed to die,
Bury me low and let me lie.



:-)

This onezz dirt old...but many of u might've come across it !!!!!

FOR WANT OF A NAIL

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

And for all ya people who're now reflecting what could've/should've/would've happened if you'd taken a different route earlier in ya life, here's one of the truly great inspirational classics:


THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
:Robert Frost


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

न टिप्नु हेर कोपिला
नचुड्नु पाप लाग्दछ
नच्यात्नु फूल नानि हो
दया र धर्म भाग्दछ

नघाउ चोट लाउनु
सडेर चित्त पाक्दछ
अनि के के।

.

Loving this thread already after all those drums beating and rolling on political issues! Thanks Samsara!

"ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS" - Mark Twain

And did young Stephen sicken,
And did young Stephen die?
And did the sad hearts thicken,
And did the mourners cry?

No; such was not the fate of Young Stephen Dowling Bots;
Though sad hearts round him thickened,
'Twas not from sickness' shots.

No whooping-cough did rack his frame,
Nor measles drear, with spots;
Not these impaired the sacred name
Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

Despised love struck not with woe
That head of curly knots,
Nor stomach troubles laid him low,
Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

O no. Then list with tearful eye,
Whilst I his fate do tell.
His soul did from this cold world fly,
By falling down a well.

They got him out and emptied him;
Alas it was too late;
His spirit was gone for to sport aloft
In the realms of the good and great.

P.S: Does anyone remember a funny poem from Gulmohar reading of Class Seven? It was the very first article in the book and talks about topsy-turvy. Is it topsy-turvy land?

Oh yeah sweet thread.GulMohar memories!

Apart from The Solitary Reaper and The Highwayman, I was very much influenced by this poem from Shakespeare's As You like it.

The Seven Ages of Man

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Nice work everybody! Thanks flippy and all for sending in your contributions (all are undisputedly great pieces of literary work...including the nursey rhymes. hahaha).

One more from Sex-spear's Julius Caesar when Antony with his verbal wit coerces the masses against Brutus at Caesar's funeral:


Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest -
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men -
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

G'morning to all.

Ahh...someone refered to the Gul Mohar text earlier. Thanks for bringing it up. BTW, I have fond memories of the poem below (and back then used to think that the face of the lady drawn for the poem was hot!!). LOL ;D


SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY
:Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

My heart leaps up when I behold
-Wiliam Wordsworth

MY heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began,
So is it now I am a man,
So be it when I shall grow old
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man:
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety

Samsara, that julius Caesar Oratory is indeed beautiful. The other monologue we practiced a lot in grade 8 was the Hamlet version

To be or not to be (hamlet 3/1)

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

Snurp - Thanks for putting up 'My heart leaps up when I behold'. I've been trying to think of this poem but the only line I could remember was "The child is father of the man" - Such depth this line has, no?

Great going Samsara and the rest.

Hamlet...A good friend from Shillong in Class 5 had his dad's name as Hamlet and as usual, whenever his dad came to vist we used to be like, "HELMET's here!!" hahaha

That was indeed a good piece there. If Shakespeare were alive today, he would be the richest writer in history as all his 37 plays have either been made into movies/tv-series/books/plays/musicals/ballets, etc. Imagine the royalty the fellow would've got outta all this??

Another one from "As You like it" that was either in our final exam or the ICSE (?? can't remember). However, the words in this verse surely uplifts the downtrodden:

Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

.

Recitation time again! :-)

Desert Places - Robert Frost

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it—it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less—
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

From Gu mohar Reader:

Where the mind is without fear


Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

By Gurudev

Suntali ko poi, awesome!! The piece of Tagore that you've written above applies perfectly to the current Nepali scenario..."let my country awake." I loved it back then reciting it at the Chapel and I am glad that I still loved reading it on Sajha earlier today!!

Another one from my Chapel days at SPS:

THE BEATITUDES
(The Holy Bible: Matthew 5:3-11)

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall he comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness sake: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the sons of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs' is the kingdom of heaven.