The ways of the world are but strange-
When people so sure of their belief in their love,
Dismiss weakness in jest: Indomitable we are!
Slowly time grinds the vanity of pride,
And as mere puppets are we left to dole with emotions-
How we think that love would never sink,
And how but time erases the deepest of thought!
Deeds do fall and vanish; but dreams! -
I thought them infallible, unvanquished as it was so far-
Oh! How time made me wrong,
In Ozymandias, Shelley was but so right!
-2\11\98, Calcutta-63
COMMENTS :
The alluded to poem by Shelley is as
follows:
Ozymandias
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive (stamped on these lifeless things),
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
People are in the habit of boasting about their love for the
object of their affection- and if that object happens to be a fair
lady, the claim borders on haughtiness. But when rough weather
comes many are left shaken. Many such claims are tested. Most
fail, a few survive- the real champions. Everyone celebrates the
winner- the loser majority languishes nameless. But love is not
just a tale of triumph, it is also a tale of loss, of dejection,
of tears:
‘Some are there, who, for love shook destiny,
And others who silently died away.’
Shelley had said that our sweetest songs are those that tell of
the saddest thoughts. There is no scientific reason why it should
be so, but fact dictates that it is so. A vast majority of the
lyrics in most languages are poems of dejection, the best poems
invariably reflecting upon the darker part of life.
