When You are Old by W.B Yeats

 When You Are Old
B.Yeats

In the poem, 'When You Are Old' by W.B.Yeats, expresses his unrequited love for Maud Gone, a woman who had rejected his love. The poem brings out many contrasts   between physical and inner beauty, true love and attraction, happiness and sadness. These contrasts suggest that physical beauty is not permanent but only true love is constant. 

The poem is a love lyric of 12 lines. The poet uses the time frame where he takes his love to the future and asks her to recall her past memories. He does so in order to warn her not to ignore him. He blends the past, present and future. He foresees his future and imagines his beloved had become old with full of grey hair and sleepy eyes , sitting in front of the fire place . Then her asks her to read the book of poems, which he was written by him and imagines her graceful youth and the people who loved her physical beauty and only he had loved her soul, a pilgrim soul questing for a true love.  His love was unconditional and would remain constant like a pole star. He holes that she regrets ,'little sadly', as she didn't understand how steadfast his love was and how foolish he was for taking no notice of it. By the time of realization, she would lose charm and he would become a star . 

Yeats uses personification,'love fled' like a person would and love hiding between the stars in heavens; love had disappeared from her life.Thus depicts her as a old woman and wishes that she might change her mind and decide to return the love for the man, who loves her soul and doesn't fade away as she loses her charm with age.

                                      

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On Children by Khalil Gibran

ON CHILDREN

Khalil Gibran

The poem On Children by Khalil Gibran offers a critical analysis of the usual expectation of parents about their children and urges them to introspect. The poem On Children is the selection from the work ‘The Prophet’. The poet asks the parents to guide their children with love and care, not to impose their ideas and dreams on them.

The poem is in the form of conversation between the mother and the prophet. The central theme of the poem is the children, who do not really belong to parents. It is the fourteen line poem where it enlightens the parents about their children and role as parents.

A mother comes to the prophet and asks him to speak about the child. The prophet tells the parent that they are not the owners of their children. They have come to this earth as Life’s longing for itself and are born as sons and daughters and are created by parents. So the parents should not be possessive about their  children.  They have only a biological bond with the children. The parents duty is to give love and encourage them to go on the right path. They should not try to impose their ideas on their children. Parents feel that the children are the medium to get over their imperfection of life. But the poet makes the parents to realise that each child has its own uniqueness and creativity. They should be let free to explore and learn from it. A child’s physical appearance might resemble like its parents but this doesn’t mean that he/she is a ‘puppet’ of parents. Children are the future and the future cannot be stagnant. Parents must allow the child to grow and not to control their inner potentialities. Life does linger and parents should let their children to build their future. As parents are the past, children belong to the future.

For instance, the parents of Siddhartha tried to restrict him to have contact with the society and its suffering. If he wouldn’t come out of his restrictions we would not come out of his restrictions we wouldn’t have got such a great personality and his words of wisdom.

The poet effectively used the metaphors of ‘Bows-Arrows-Archer’. Here ‘Bows’ stand for parents, ‘Arrows’ for children and ‘Archer’ for God. The archer bends the bows and sends the arrows into infinite path. The parents serve as an instrument to help the child to reach the destination. They are just a ‘guiding star’ like the star that guides ship to reach its destination. As Shakespeare says , ‘Life is nothing but drama and we are merely the actor’, which justifies the idea of the past. The Archer loves parents who give their children strength and freedom to grow and to lead fruitful life. The poet asserts the fact that as he loves the arrows so he loves the bow.

Hence the parents should take the trouble take the trouble, difficulties, scarifies and compromise attitude in a glad way, so that it would bring a smile on the face of child and a fruitful future. At the end, it gives us effective message that the arrows will be the bows in future. So even children must be alert when they take any step in regard to the parents , as the saying goes,’ History always repeats.’

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Linkers Solved

Fill in the blanks with linkers :

1.______the old man came to the garden one day walking hundreds of miles, the owner of the garden free and relaxed. _________the owners wife was worried _______her husband became lethargic and shied away from hard work.                                         

 (but,when,because,after)

Ans:after,but,because

2. The General of Monaco asked each of his soldiers to cut the criminal's head. ____ no soldier came forward to do it. _________the ministers of Monaco assembled a Commission. _____, they appointed a committee and a subcommittee. _______ they decided that the best thing would be to alter the death sentence to one of life imprisonment.     
(Besides,but,at last,therefore)

Ans: but,therefore,besides,atlast

3._____, all this looked like healthy competition.____________, ______ it rose to such a pitch that there was no land to buy __________for Tammanna or Basavaiah.

( however,to begin with, either,gradually)

 Ans:to begin with, however,  gradually, either

4. There was________a guillotine for cutting the heads of______an executioner in Monaco. ___________the ministers wrote a letter asking the French Government whether they could lend them a machine_____an expert to cut off the criminal's head.

(and,neither,so,nor)

 Ans: neither, nor, so,and

5. The young man took refuge in Don Gonzalo's house. He went Seville, _______came to Madrid. He wrote letters to Laura.________they were intercepted by her parents. ______ in despair, he joined the army.  _______he met a glorious death in the war. 

(But, and,at last, then)

 Ans:then,but,at last,and

7. Tammanna ________Basavaiah were rivals. If Tammanna bought four acres of land , Basavaiah______followed suit. ______all this looked like healthy competition______, gradually it rose to such a pitch that there was no land left in the village for them to buy. 

(also,and, however, in the beginning)

 Ans:and,also,in the beginning,however

8. Bachni Devi resistance against her husband ______ had obtained a contract to cut trees. .......forest official arrived at the forest, the women held up lighted lanterns_____stopped them. _______the forester made fun of them, they were not discouraged. 

(and,though,when,who)

 Ans:who,when,and,though

9. Laura was so beautiful _____she was known as 'The Silver Maiden' in her locality. Laura was in love with Gonzalo _______her parents did not approve of this _____they wanted her to marry a merchant. There was a fight between the merchant and Gonzalo _____the merchant was badly wounded. 

(but,instead,in which,that)

 Ans:that,but,instead,in which

10. German kings used to keep gaming houses ____some years ago they were forbidden to do so. They stopped it.......these gaming houses did so much harm_____the Germans prohibited their rulers to make money in this way. _____ gambling is a dirty business, the King of Monaco had to resort it.                                                           

 (because,although, so,but)

 Ans: but,because, so,although

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Expression : Solved

Fill in the blanks by choosing the appropriate expression given in brackets:(with answers)

1.   (paid no attention, taken to, zip along, hit out)

In the heart of Pudukkottai, young women ________the roads on their bicycles. Jameela bibi , who has_______cycling, told me, “I know people made dirty remarks when I started cycling but I________."

(zip along, taken to, paid no attention)

2.   (serves him right, put on, while away time)

Every Sunday, don gonzalo would--------the hunting dress and go to one of his estates taking his gun and his dog to---------in hunting.
(put on, while away time)


3. (puts on, hands out, took to it)

Juanito______ the book to Don Gonzalo. ______the glasses and takes out a magnifying glass to read the book. 
(hands out, puts on)

4. (hard put to, hit upon the idea, in a fix)


Roof was______when he was in the voting booth. He was turn between loyalty to Marcus and the fear of Iyi. Then he______of tearing the ballot paper into two and put each half into the two boxes.
( in a fix, hit upon the idea)
5.  (shied away, try their luck, well-versed)


Tammanna  was_____in agriculture. So, it was not necessary for the owner to toil hard in the farm and he____from hard work.
(well-versed, sheid away)
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