The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner - Summary | The Heritage of the Words

English | Summary | Unit: Love and Reminiscence

The Lamentation of an Old Pensioner | W.B. Yeats

Although I shelter from the rain

Under a broken tree,

My chair was nearest to the fire

In every company

That talked of love or politics,

Ere Time transfigured me.

Though lads are making pikes again

For some conspiracy,

And crazy rascals rage their fill

At human tyranny,

My contemplations are of Time

That has transfigured me.

There’s not a woman turns her face

Upon a broken tree,

And yet the beauties that I loved

Are in my memory;

I spit into the face of Time

That has transfigured me.

Grandmother - Summary | The Heritage of the Words

English | Summary | Unit: Love and Reminiscence

Grandmother | Ray Young Bear

The poet of this poem, Ray Young Bear was born into a Meskwaki family on the Meskwaki Tribal Settlement in Iowa. He was guided by his maternal grandmother for knowing culture and heading forth for learning. He has an acute sense of dislocation in two different cultures, American and Meskwaki. So, he puts his respect towards his identity by valorizing in words. The theme of his poem and other words are American Indians’ search for identity.

The Gardener - Summary | The Magic of the Words

English | Summary | Unit Six: Life and Death

The Gardener | Rudyard Kipling

Characters: Helen Turrell, Michael Turrell, the Gardener, Mrs. Searsworth and George Turrell

“The Gardener” is a beautifully written story. Kipling contempts/despises the so-called civilized society for its shallowness of feeling, dead habits and lack of respect for the individual emotions and feelings. The story presents the fact that an individual is caught between two fires: world of emotion and the world of social rules or norms and values. If he engrossed in things pleasant to the senses and sensuality, they may lead him to doom.