Skip to main content

Long after it was heard no more...


BEHOLD her, single in the field,

  Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

  Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
         
And sings a melancholy strain;

O listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.


No Nightingale did ever chaunt

  More welcome notes to weary bands
  
Of travellers in some shady haunt,

  Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas
  
Among the farthest Hebrides.


Will no one tell me what she sings?—

  Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

  And battles long ago:
  
Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?


Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
  
  As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at her work,

  And o'er the sickle bending;—

I listen'd, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill,
  
The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.
The Solitary Reaper by William Wordsworth is one poem that I keep coming back to every single time. There are some things that you just get stuck to. No they don’t rule your thoughts for the entire length of the day. They do not drive you crazy with their eternal presence. But, they somehow just creep into those corners and gaps of your thoughts which are often left unfilled. Not always pleasant, those memories/images, not always hopeful, you just happen to keep stumbling upon them someway or the other. And when you do, you cannot help but smile at them and let them gently pass.

This poem is one of those images for me, the last stanza being my favourite. The sad, melancholic tune of the poem goes well with the theme of the maiden’s song. Weird how the poem talks about memories that you bear in your heart “long after it was heard no more” and has just the same impact on it’s readers! J
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The MIC Syndrome!

Today, with deep admiration for myself and a few others who helped me in my discovery, I present before my readers a not-so-new genre of males: The MIC males, short for The Messed up, In Denial, Crying males! At the risk of sounding sexist and fearing unwelcomed remarks, the usual disclaimer is as follows: The category of humans being described here is just from personal experience or/and experiences of others that I happen to witness quite closely and observed acutely. Before really describing this genre, it makes sense to tell you their importance in the world. Well, to say the least, they help in bringing variety to our otherwise boring lives! If you are finally tired of staring at the ceiling of your house, it’s time for you to go out there looking for these men! Where will you find them? Now that’s a tricky one! Generally, their physical characteristics can be quite deceptive and they do not hang out in clusters like the geese. You really have to be lucky enough to be able
14 comments
Read more

Spirals and Circles

So here is a mathematical answer to a question that I have quite often asked myself and seldom troubled my friends with: “Does life move in Spirals or Circles?” The course that life takes is often described as a maze by some and a road with lots of twists and turns by others. A complicated web of events, people, emotions and thoughts, caught between these is you, the spider. A lot of our religious books refer to the course of life as “the cycle of life”, which essentially means “the circle of life”. It is perhaps the phrase used most often during those innumerable philosophical discussions that boring people like us have over drinks with friends. Yes, I have been ranting for quite a while, without really bringing in what I promised: the mathematics! In laymen terms, a circle is a two dimensional figure which is a collection of all points that are at equal distances from a given point. Essentially, a circle starts and ends at the same point. A spiral, is a three dimensional figur
9 comments
Read more

It

He hated it. So much so that he couldn’t stand It for the shortest period of time. It was almost like a monster eating him up. Slow and steady, like an insect it would creep out of nowhere and linger around him for eternity. Making him almost claustrophobic with it’s presence. Like a rope tied around his neck, forbidding him to speak anything. All he could do was shouting in vain, hoping that someone would take it away from him. It was in It’s presence that the woman that he had loved so much had left him. It reminded him of those exam halls sitting inside which all he could ever do was staring at the empty answer sheet that he always submitted! Bringing back pathetic memories of the Conferences where he tried so hard to elicit some response from the other side. Or the umpteen attempts at making his audience laugh, failing most of the time. She loved it. So much so that it was like a part of her. She was used to it, like the chirping of birds, the presence of the wind. She did not fin
8 comments
Read more