Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight!

Rock me to sleep
-Elizabeth Allen

BACKWARD, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for to-night!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears,—
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,—
Take them, and give me my childhood again!
I have grown weary of dust and decay,—
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;
Weary of sowing for others to reap;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!
Many a summer the grass has grown green,
Blossomed and faded, our faces between:
Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,
Long I to-night for your presence again.
Come from the silence so long and so deep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone;
No other worship abides and endures,—
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.
Slumber's soft calms o'er my heavy lids creep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,
Fall on your shoulders again as of old;
Let it drop over my forehead to-night,
Shading my faint eyes away from the light;
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
Since I last listened your lullaby song:
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood's years have been only a dream.
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

Smile

Smile
-Me

Smile at the sunshine, and the breeze.
Smile at the moon and the stars.
Smile at light, smile at the dark.
Smile at the meadows, and the highways.
Smile at the trees, and the skyscrapers.
Smile at the blossom, and the babe.
Smile at the passersby, smile at yourself.
Smile at good luck, and the misfortunes.
Smile in good times, and the adversities.
Smile at the smiles, and your tears.
Smile at love, smile at hate.
Smile at life, smile at death.
Smile at successes, and the failures.
Smile at perfection, and the mistake.
Smiles you give, smiles you take.
Smile, come what may or may not.
Smile always, always smile.

In Memoriam

Time may help us forget pains, hurts and sorrows. But memories can never be erased from our heart of hearts. And Sabna comes to my memory not seldom. I don't know whether I'd be making our aggrieved friends cry again, if ever they come to read this. But I can't help it. The other day I ransacked my "memory bag", which possesses all my childhood treasures including the classroom pranks and tit bits, to find out the letters Sab had written to me. Those mails we shared in teens had been bridges for a lost friendship, broken in childhood. My hands trembled when I discovered them at last. As if prima facie I read, re-read and re-read them until I realised that I shouldn't drench those precious bits. And there in that small heap, I saw a poem I wrote in 12th std., initially dedicating it to Sab, and later publishing it in the school magazine to all my friends. Here's my trembling hands going through it over again, wishing for a catharsis, and intensely missing Sab.

The Memoir

Friend, you are a gift to me
With you, I always love to be
Like stars dazzling in the deep sky
Shone every where we did a try.
Stays an implicit feel deep inside
When your smiling face is beside.

I will be there when you call
Just like you reached me pall
I can cry with you in your tears
Pal, you and I met since years
Did we quit, but now reunited
We sense the real joy unlimited.

We strive to accomplish a feat
When we feel an unusual beat
In our deepest heart, and soul
Energy brimming in as a whole
Isn’t it a wonder to see you
Culled out the best in a few.

Now that we lost our fine days
Fighting all around in our ways
Time stands before us as a shadow
We know not, is it wide or narrow
The road of life, which will guide
And soon hold apart both of us aside.

It’s good that we are true friends
Sharing all bliss, qualms, tensions
Fears, dreams and love all together
Cherish I this friendship forever
Now it’s time to bid you good bye
Memories of you in my heart lie.

Dreams

Dreams are tricky fellows. We see them initially at a distance but don't have them. Yet they keep spurring us until we get them. When we once accomplish that 'something' we dreamt of, we should never be complacent. Have a new dream. If one doesn't get it at all in spite of the sweat and blood he poured out in its pursuit, he should never give up. Keep dreaming. For sometimes, may be that's all one can do. But have faith- newer dreams come true everyday. When one of my friends remarked the other day, that he has got no dreams, I was astonished. Even the most desperate person would possess a dream -knowingly or not- without which his life would be meaningless.
It's obvious that this doesn't imply that one has to simply sit cozily and dream. That'd be worst failure, to say. Working smart on the dream matters the most in turning them true.
Carl Sandburg reminds us, "nothing happens unless first we dream."
Dreams help us keep working and going on. They are the prophesies of successes in the future. Dreams are the blurred outlines shadowing out of nowhere but preceding a vision that's to bask in the clear light. The dream, be it any, lies in our hands. Give it forth or fold it tight. Make it happen or forget it. The choice is ours.

Life is but an empty dream!

“A Psalm of Life”

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream! -
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Goodbye Sabna...

An eternal goodbye is very difficult to come to terms with. Specially when it's someone you've grown up with, lived your schoolyears with, saved tenderly in your heart and now no more. Why do loved ones speed past into the chasms of eternal memory- or oblivion I do not know-, leaving us to slog behind? Woe the day, oh tear-worn heart! Now it's adieu to my friend, to all her dreams, forever...
Goodbye Sab...