(July 4, 12:44am)

The other time, I was thinking about the poems we read in high school.. the text book ones.. don't they make you nostalgic?

Thankfully, we were in ICSE, and they had a mandatory section on verses in the board.. So we had this beautiful collection of verses...

A book called, Images of Life!

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Even the name of this book, a very touching one which was, makes so many memories rush back to the mind.. and to our hearts...

Sometimes verses can be a pressure.. if your English teacher is not really an accommodating one, or one who could give lively description of things..

While teaching poetry, you need to have the skill for lively description... as verses need to be felt rather than understood..

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We were lucky.. Mr Matthew, our Std Xth class teacher, and our English teacher along with Mrs Roy, was a gentleman..

He taught us a whole collection of Milton and Wordsworth's poems in such enlivening fashion.. Lines written in early spring, the first poem from Images of Life, which in turn was prescribed for both Std IX and Std Xth, is close to my heart..

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It appreciated the beauty of nature.. it told us, Mother Earth had space and resources for everybody...

But then there is no wealth so excess in quantity that can satisfy the greed in man... which is at times unabashedly enormous..

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Here's an extract..

"I hear a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sat reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts,
Bring sad thoughts to the mind..

To her fair works did nature link,
The human soul that through me ran,
And much it grieved my heart to think,
What man has made of man!"

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