Litstyle

Afterwards when the wars of Kalinga were over, the fallow fields of Dhauli hid the blood-spilt butchered bodies. [originally 'red-smeared voiceless bodies'] As the earth burrowed into their dead hunger with its merciless worms,     [was 'tortured worms'] guided the foxes to their limp genitals. Years later, the evening wind, trembling the glazed waters of the River Daya, keens in the rock edicts the vain word, like the voiceless cicadas of night: [was 'shuttered silence, an air:'] the measure of Ashoka's suffering does not appear enough. The place of his pain peers lamentably from among the pains of the dead. Analysis The poem Dhauli is what Odisha poet Jayanta Mahapatra makes of the aftermath of Kalinga war (war between the Maurya Empire led by Ashoka and the Kalinga Kingdom, that is to say present-day Odisha state) where Ashoka repented perpetrating deadly gruesome attacks on the people of Kalinga and exterminating many in the order of ten thousand,...

The Goat-Paths by James Stephens The crooked paths go every way Upon the hill - they wind about Through the heather in and out Of the quiet sunniness. And there the goats, day after day, Stray in sunny quietness, Cropping here and cropping there, As they pause and turn and pass, Now a bit of heather spray, Now a mouthful of the grass. In the deeper sunniness, In the place where nothing stirs, Quietly in quietness, In the quiet of the furze, For a time they come and lie Staring on the roving sky. If you approach they run away, They leap and stare, away they bound, With a sudden angry sound, To the sunny quietude; Crouching down where nothing stirs In the silence of the furze, Couching down again to brood In the sunny solitude. If I were as wise as they I would stray apart and brood, I would beat a hidden way Through he quiet heather spray To a sunny solitude; And should you come I'd run away, I would make an angry sound, I would stare and turn and bound To the deeper quietude, T...

I wandered lonely as a Cloud That floats on high o'er vales and Hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden Daffodils; Beside the Lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A Poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the Daffodils. Analysis Stanza 1-2 The poet was lonely like a single floating cloud. He was moving around aimlessly when all of a sudden he came upon ‘a host of golden Daffodils’, that is,...

A Psalm of Life BY 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 to-morrow   Find us farther than to-day. 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 like 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 ...