I Had Gone a- Begging by Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath  Tagore is a famous Indian English poet who reshaped Indian English literature an poetic genius who began writing at early age of eight ; his early writings were at his mother tongue Bengali but later drifted towards English but still wrote much in Bengali, his works in Bengali is translated all over the world in different languages and his  poetry is viewed as somewhat a blend of free spirituality, he due to his contribution in literature became the first non-European to win the Nobel prize in literature in 1913 however still his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside India. 

Gitanjali Poem No. 50

I had gone a begging

"I had gone a-begging from door to door in the village path, when thy golden chariot appeared in the distance like a gorgeous dream and I wondered who was this King of all kings! 

My hopes rose high and me thought my evil days were at an end, and I stood waiting for alms to be given unasked and for wealth scattered on all sides in the dust. 

The chariot stopped where I stood. Thy glance fell on me and thou camest down with a smile. I felt that the luck of my life had come at last. Then of a sudden thou didst hold out thy right hand and say `What hast thou to give to me?' 

Ah, what a kingly jest was it to open thy palm to a beggar to beg! I was confused and stood undecided, and then from my wallet I slowly took out the least little grain of corn and gave it to thee. 

But how great my surprise when at the day's end I emptied my bag on the floor to find a least little gram of gold among the poor heap. I bitterly wept and wished that I had had the heart to give thee my all.

Analysis

 The poem I had gone a begging is not just a simple poetry but a narrative one which tells moral and central Idea of poem at last

In the poem a poet-beggar was begging from door to door in a village path. Suddenly he saw that a golden chariot was coming towards him watching the golden chariot the beggar thought that who is this king of king coming towards him. Soon the chariot came and stopped before the beggar. The king came down from the chariot and looked at the beggar with a smiling face. At that moment the beggar felt as if luck has finally reached him.

But in opposite to his expectation the king himself held out his hand and asked the beggar for alms. At  first the  beggar was utterly confused and remained standing undecided. He was not able to understand how a king stepping down from golden chariot can ask for alms from him a beggar. He feeling it, as if the king is mocking him. Took out the smallest grain of corn from his bag and offered it to the king reluctantly. At the end of day the poet-beggar returned home and emptied his bag on the floor. To his great surprise, he found a little grain of gold in the heap of alms. Then he realized his folly and wished that he should have given all of his grain to the king, as then all the gold he would have would turned back in gold.

The beggar at first had expected rich alms from the king. But opposite to his expectation, the king himself begged for alms. Taking as kingly jest

He presented little in alms and later received the same in gold, the moral of this story is that what we give to this world is what we later receive in this world in appropriate multiple, the king of kings that is god watches us to see what we contribute to this world and awards us according to it.

Ode to the west wind by P.B. shelly

Percy Bysshe Shelly

One of the most radical and also said to be most romantic of all English poets though his life was short, his contribution towards English literature is far too wide, his poetic style is both spontaneous and far too mystical.

due to poem being too long and difficult to understand I have given analysis of the poetry verse by verse.

Ode to the west wind 

(I)

O Wild West Wind, thou breath of autumn’s being

Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until

Thin azure sister of spring shall blow 

Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)

With living hues and odours plain and hill;

Analysis

poet praises west wind saying that it is autumns breath from whose unseen presence the withered leaves are driven as ghosts are driven from magician, west wind is the one who puts seeds into soil, where they rest for whole winter until spring, which is here represented as his sister wakes them up from their sleep by blowing her clarion (trumpet) and whole land is filled with various colors.

(II)

Wild spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, o hear!

Thou on whose stream, ‘mid the steep sky’s commotion,

Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,

Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning! There are spread

On the blue surface of thine airy surge,

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce maenad, even from the dim verge

Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night

Will be the dome of a vast sepulcher

Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: o hear!

Analysis

Here Shelly is praising west wind and calls him as a wild spirit which is uncontrollable and travels from one place to another; it is both destroyer as well as preserver. Now after praising west wind Shelly asks him to hear what he has to say. 

here Shelly says that like leaves fall from a branch of a tree into a stream similarly due to west wind clouds are scattered from sky (here a picture of giant tree is imagined whose roots are in the sea and branches on sky and upon which clouds instead of leaves are present).

on next lines the clouds are represented as angels of rain and lightning travelling upon west wind (the west wind is said to be controller of storms) and the lightning from these clouds is looking like hairs from a Mænads(mad intoxicated female followers of Greek god of wine and madness Dionysus  ), Shelly says that those locks of lightning are  symbol of approaching storm.

Shelly says that the fast moving sound of west wind is like a funeral song for the passing year and the dome shaped clouds it brings will be the dark tomb for its burial, the tomb will be closed by all the power of the west wind, and rain (color black is presented to show the darkness of the passing years last night) lightning and hail will burst from the storm representing passing of the year  

(III)

Thou who dist waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,,

Lull’d by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in baiae’s bay,

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers

Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them ! thou

For whose path Atlantic’s level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,

And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

Analysis

Shelly says that Mediterranean sea which during summer lay still and clam, as if sleeping due to lullabies of several streams is awakened by west wind which brings storms with him and stir churn and stir Mediterranean sea, the Mediterranean is in the poem is represented as a male who during his summer sleep saw dreams about old palaces and towers submerged in sea covered with azure colored moss and various sea flowers which are so beautiful that one’s sense fails to describe them, 

Shelly says that that even Atlantic level power breaks itself into chasms for the west wind, and the various kinds of sea plants which grow on the bottom of Atlantic hearing voice of west wind become afraid and start to tremble and despoil with fear. 

(IV)

If I were a dead leaf thou mightiest bear;

If I were swift cloud to fly with thee;

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free

Than thou, o uncontrollable! If even

I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed

Scarce seem’d a vision-I would ne’er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d

One too like thee-tameless, and swift, and proud.

Analysis

shelly says that if only he could have been a dead leaf or a cloud he could have shared the powers of uncontrollable west wind and would have become as free and uncontrollable as him, but as he cannot he at least wants to become comrade of west wind, the poet says that during his boyhood days he could  have been similar to west wind and even outstripped west wind in speed but that dream now seem scarce which now can't be achieved, so he asks west wind to carry him as he carry leafs and clouds, the poet says that if he could have been young and powerful again, he would not have asked for his help but being old now he has fallen into troubles of life which has bled strength from him, weight of time has chained and weakened him someone who was once like him tameless, swift and proud. 

(V)

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:

What if my leaves are falling like its own?

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, sprit fierce,

My sprit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,

Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth;

And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O wind,

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

Analysis

the poets ask west wind to him his lyre like he makes forests even through he is old, it doesn't matter as by his power both will make sweet autumnal tones, the poet says west wind to merge with his spirit and drive his thought all over the universe like withered leaves, which sparks new birth of thoughts from ashes of his thoughts and reach among whole mankind, and through his lips he may blow the trumpet of prophecy waking mankind telling/asking them that"If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" 

Punishment in Kindergarten By Kamala Das

Kamla Das

Kamala surayya/ Madhavikutty also known as kamla das is famous Indian English poet and also leading Malyalam language author famous for her autobiography and short stories she is widely popular for fiery poems, in spite of all the works she has done it is hard to imagine that Kamla das never attended college, all in all it could be said that she was truly an genius in English literature.

Punishment in Kindergarten

Today the world is a little more my own.
No need to remember the pain
A blue-frocked woman caused, throwing
Words at me like pots and pans, to drain
That honey-coloured day of peace.
‘Why don't you join the others, what
A peculiar child you are!’

On the lawn, in clusters, sat my
schoolmates sipping
Sugarcane, they turned and laughed;
Children are funny things, they laugh
In mirth at others' tears, I buried
My face in the sun-warmed hedge
And smelt the flowers and the pain.

The words are muffled now, the laughing
Faces only a blur. The years have
Sped along, stopping briefly
At beloved halts and moving
Sadly on. My mind has found
An adult peace. No need to remember
That picnic day when I lay hidden
By a hedge, watching the steel-white sun
Standing lonely in the sky. 

Summery

on first look it looks to be a very simple poem in which Kamla Das is narrating a story of her childhood  when she along with her kindergarten class was taken to picnic by their teacher, being shy of company, she was scolded by her teacher who wanted her to play with others, and at the top of it she was also mocked by her classmates for being scolded by her teacher, but in deep the whole can be bisected into two parts first being the age of immaturity during child hood and second being becoming adult and how now she has acquired peace and is now not troubled by anything said by anyone, in short this poem represents moving on with life or in a sense growing up from being immature child towards being mature adult.

The Unknown Citizen by W.H.Auden

W.H. Auden-was an English poet he is known to be poetic genius who wrote in different verse forms and styles he was greatly influenced by poetry of William Blake Emily Dickinson and Robert frost he is also known to mimic their writing styles. 

The Unknown Citizen

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be

One against whom there was no official complaint,

And all the reports on his conduct agree

That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word,

he was a saint,

For in everything he did he served the

Greater Community.

Except for the War till the day he retired

He worked in a factory and never got fired,

But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.

Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,

For his Union reports that he paid his dues,

(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)

And our Social Psychology workers found

That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.

The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day

And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.

Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,

And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.

Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare

He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan

And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,

A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content

That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;

When there was peace, he was for peace:  when there was war, he went.

He was married and added five children to the population,

Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a

parent of his generation.

And our teachers report that he never interfered with their

   education.

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:

Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard. 

Analysis-  
Auden's this poetry is a kind of critical analysis for our current society and whom it considers an ideal citizen and how that citizens social life his policies his habits his family and everything that can be analyzed is analyzed the analyzers give him title of saint and say he served greater society yet because he was a common man they do not give his name preferring him as a common unknown citizen they tell us how he lived but the thing they do not tell his was he happy about his life was he free to take the decisions of his life or were they taken by someone else, but the authority does not relate to these questions because they have studied his whole life and if there would have been anything wrong they would have known 

thou art indeed just, lord if i contend by Gerard manly hopkins

G.M. Hopkins – 

Gerard manly Hopkins was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert and Jesuit priest who due to his large accumulated fame is considered by different readers as the greatest Victorian poet of religion, of nature, or of melancholy. he was a inventor who led experimental explorations in use of prosody and imagery in a period of traditional verse but because his style of writing so much differed from those of his era , his best poems were not accepted for publication during his lifetime only in later period their worth was recognized. 

 Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend 

 Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend 

With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. 

Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must 

Disappointment all I endeavour end? 

    Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, 

How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost 

Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust 

Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend, 

Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes 

Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again 

With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes 

Them; birds build – but not I build; no, but strain, 

Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. 

Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

Analysis- 

G.M Hopkins was an religious men in above poetry his one way conversation with god is shown in which he says that he truely thinks that god is just in his actions and all what he does is for their betterment but even then he wants to argue his case in front of him as what he ask is just/right. The poet now asks god that why it is that that sinners prosper in this world and he face disappointment/failure in everything. he asks god is he his friend or enemy he again says if he is friend than how is he better then his enemy. He says that the worst kind of sinners(here Hopkins mean sexual sinners ) prosper even in their spare time and he who spent his whole life for his cause do not. now hopkins say that he sees banks of river where vegetation (chervil an small plant that grows in England and that blooms in spring with white flowers) is being shaken by wind, the birds are building nests, but he says that unlike them he cannot create something new and fresh for nature he is just like an eunuch who cannot breed new ideas which will last in time, in last line he prays to god that like he sends rain for these plants to prosper please also send rain of imagination towards him so he may too prosper  

Spring Pools by Robert Frost

Robert Frost- Robert Lee Frost is a highly regarded

 for his realistic depictions of rural life and using 

them to examine complex social and philosophical 

themes.

Spring Pools

These pools that, though in forests, still reflect

The total sky almost without defect,

And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,

Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,

And yet not out by any brook or river,

But up by roots to bring dark foliage on
.

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds

To darken nature and be summer woods---

Let them think twice before they use their powers

To blot out and drink up and sweep away

These flowery waters and these watery flowers

From snow that melted only yesterday.



Analysis
The spring poos is a beautiful poem that depicts effects
 of how previous generation effects younger generation
and subdue their advancement
the poet compare children with  flowers  around pure
 spring pool from which they absorb purity of thoughts and
 their ambitions with defect less sky.
but then frost says that their purity will soon vanish
 not by any external calamity but due to adults
    who will darken the pure pool with their pasted
 ideals and will curb their ambitions with their actions
then Frost questions the adults who have it engraved
 in their minds to destroy future of their younger
 generation without any prior thought to think
 again is it right to do so.