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[Poem] The Burned Letter - by Pushkin

Farewell, Letter of Love! farewell: it's her desire. How long did I delay! How long refused, in ire, I to destroy the single joy of mine!... Enough! The time has come. Burn, scripts of love divine. I'm ready; nothing else can call for my sad soul… Now the greedy flame is touching its form whole… A minute!… it is flamed and blazing – smoke, light, With my bitter laments, is flying off my sight. And now the ring's stamp forfeited its form previous – It's boiling – the seal wax… O, Providence of Heavens! That's all! The letter's leaves are twisted, now black; On their light ashes their well known track Is whitening… My heart is squeezed. Oh, dear ashes, In my sad destiny, my poor consolations, Forever lie on breast, so fully, fully wracked…  
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[Poem] Childe Harold's Pilgrimage - by Lord Byron

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the shore;--upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. His steps are not upon thy paths,--thy fields Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from

[Poem] To any Reader - by Robert Louis Stevenson

As from the house your mother sees You playing round the garden trees, So you may see, if you will look Through the windows of this book, Another child, far, far away, And in another garden, play. But do not think you can at all, By knocking on the window, call That child to hear you. He intent Is all on his play-business bent. He does not hear, he will not look, Nor yet be lured out of this book. For, long ago, the truth to say, He has grown up and gone away, And it is but a child of air That lingers in the garden there.

Just like that!

One of my nephews is three and a half years old now. If you have spent a good amount of time with a kid this age, you would relate to the fact that they ask a zillion questions. Or should I say they ask the same question a zillion times? As most things are new to them, kids look at everything with boundless curiosity. As such, I am now being barraged with so many WHYs on a daily basis. Upto a point I would answer his questions patiently, but then it gets down to basics where it becomes increasingly difficult to answer. These basics are something I always believed that I understood, but with one of his simple 'why?', he destroys my illusion in no time. When it gets difficult to answer, I get angry. Because my ego is hurt! Is he teasing me? No! Because I can see the innocence in his face and these questions coming out of pure curiosity. Yet, that doesn't seem to be a very good reasoning. I try to console myself by thinking he is not old enough to understand all the nuances. H

Do we really know what we are looking for in life?

As we get older and older in life, until a certain point, all equations in life get equally messier. Kids live in the moment. Whatever is their state of mind, they stay in the present. Mostly active, curious, and happy, and sometimes hurt, crying, and sad. It is an intense state of living. Does a kid born in a rich family feel more happy than a kid born in a poor family? I am talking here of the depth of the happiness, not the breadth of it. Of course, a rich kid is always attended to, its whims will be satisfied quickly, and hence it may have more moments of happiness in life. On the other hand, a poor kid is mostly unattended, possibly subjected to traumatic experiences every day, and hence may have fewer moments to cherish. But I don't think the intensity of both kids' excitement and happiness differ at all. I was born in a lower middle class family. Both of my parents had to work to make ends meet. Thus I and my sister were hardly supervised. Though my parents genuinely tri

Hurt - the song Johnny Cash made his own

"Hurt" is a song by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails from its second studio album, The Downward Spiral (1994), written by Trent Reznor. It was released on April 17, 1995, as a promotional single from the album. The song received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Song in 1996. In 2002, Johnny Cash covered "Hurt" to commercial and critical acclaim. The related music video is considered one of the greatest of all time by publications such as NME. Reznor praised Cash's interpretation of the song for its "sincerity and meaning," going so far as to say "that song isn't mine anymore." Sorry, but I am so lazy that I am taking the above description word to word from Wikipedia. I think a lot but rarely put my thoughts into words. Most of you will agree that thinking and penning it down are two different things. But I want to save this song for a later stage of my life (If I make it till there), when I can sit on the roof of my ho

Lorena - A broken heart song turned into the American Civil War favorite

I came across this song on Yousician (an app for learning musical instruments) during one of my guitar practice sessions. I tried to find original version of the song on the Internet and found a thousand of them! After sifting through many of them, I still liked the Yousician version. Someone has a recording of this posted on Youtube, so here it is: Coming back to the lyrics, Wikipedia says that the lyrics for this song were written in 1856 by Rev. Henry D. L. Webster after a broken engagement. The music was then composed by his friend Joseph P Webster. It quickly became a favorite of soldiers of both side of the American Civil War. And here I am trying to treasure it in my open closet. :P The years creep slowly by, Lorena The snow is on the grass a gain The sun's low down the sky, Lorena The frost gleams where the flowers have been But my heart beats on as warmly now As when the summer days were nigh The sun can never dip so low Or down affections cloudless sky A hundred month