Teacher's Toolkit for Shared Learning: Where we've reached at the end of week 1

Innovative and informative.

"The Canadian Authors Meet" F. R. Scott for III UG

"The Canadian Authors Meet"

F. R. Scott
From:   Overture. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1945.

Expansive puppets percolate self-unction
Beneath a portrait of the Prince of Wales.
Miss Crotchet's muse has somehow failed to function,
Yet she’s a poetess. Beaming, she sails

From group to chattering group, with such a dear
Victorian saintliness, as is her fashion,
Greeting the other unknowns with a cheer -
Virgins of sixty who still write of passion.

The air is heavy with Canadian topics,
And Carman, Lampman, Roberts, Campbell, Scott,
Are measured for their faith and philanthropics,
Their zeal for God and King, their earnest thought.

The cakes are sweet, but sweeter is the feeling
That one is mixing with the literati;
It warms the old, and melts the most congealing.
Really, it is a most delightful party.

Shall we go round the mulberry bush, or shall
We gather at the river, or shall we
Appoint a Poet Laureate this fall,
Or shall we have another cup of tea?

O Canada, O Canada, O can
A day go by without new authors springing
To paint the native maple, and to plan
More ways to set the selfsame welkin ringing?

“Australia” by A. D. Hope for III UG

“Australia” by A. D. Hope

A nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey
In the field uniform of modern wars
Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws
Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.


They call her a young country, but they lie:
She is the last of lands, the emptiest,
A woman beyond her change of life, a breast
Still tender but within the womb is dry.


Without songs, architecture, history:
The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,
Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,
The river of her immense stupidity


Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.
In them at last the ultimate men arrive
Whose boast is not: ‘we live’ but ‘we survive’,
A type who will inhabit the dying earth.


And her five cities, like five teeming sores,
Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state
Where second-hand Europeans pullulate
Timidly on the edge of alien shores.


Yet there are some like me turn gladly home
From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find
The Arabian desert of the human mind,
Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,


Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare
Springs in that waste, some spirit which escapes
The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes
Which is called civilization over there.

Contemporary Contemplations on Ecoliterature

Contemporary Contemplations on Ecoliterature is my latest book. Kindly go through this give your valuable views.

I got the impetus to go into this wonderful field of literary study from Dr.Nirmal Selvamony and later Dr.Scott Slovic. This book springs from the energy I received from many such great personalities. For this book too, I got a lot of support from Dr.Nirmal Selvamony, Dr.Scott Slovic and Dr.C.A. Cranston. I wish to thank all the contributors for their earnest effort to disseminate the understanding they have got on the subject. I also wish to thank Prof.P.Natarajan for his active support in proof reading this book.

Let this book become another mile stone in the field of Ecoliterature and bring forth strong roots and sweet fruits!

Dr.SURESH FREDERICK

“The Affliction” (I) By George Herbert

“The Affliction” (I)

from The Temple (1633)

By George Herbert

When first thou didst entice to thee my heart,

         I thought the service brave;

So many joys I writ down for my part,

         Besides what I might have

Out of my stock of natural delights,

Augmented with thy gracious benefits.

I looked on thy furniture so fine,

         And made it fine to me;

Thy glorious household-stuff did me entwine,

         And ‘tice me unto thee.

Such stars I counted mine: both heav’n and earth;

Paid me my wages in a world of mirth.

What pleasures could I want, whose King I serv’d,

         Where joys my fellows were?

Thus argu’d into hopes, my thoughts reserv’d

         No place for grief or fear.

Therefore my sudden soul caught at the place,

And made her youth and fierceness seek thy face.

At first thou gav’st me milk and sweetnesses;

         I had my wish and way;

My days were straw’d with flow’rs and happiness;

         There was no month but May.

But with my years sorrow did twist and grow,

And made a party unawares for woe.

My flesh began unto my soul in pain,

         “Sicknesses cleave my bones;

Consuming agues dwell in ev’ry vein,

         And tune my breath to groans”.

Sorrow was all my soul; I scarce believ’d,

Till grief did tell me roundly, that I liv’d.

When I got health, thou took’st away my life,

         And more, for my friends die;

My mirth and edge was lost, a blunted knife

         Was of more use than I.

Thus thin and lean without a fence or friend,

I was blown through with ev’ry storm and wind.

Whereas my birth and spirit rather took

         The way that takes the town;

Thou didst betray me to a ling’ring book,

         And wrap me in a gown.

I was entangled in the world of strife,

Before I had the power to change my life.

Yet, for I threaten’d oft the siege to raise,

         Not simp’ring all mine age,

Thou often didst with academic praise

         Melt and dissolve my rage.

I took thy sweet’ned pill, till I came where

I could not go away, nor persevere.

Yet lest perchance I should too happy be

         In my unhappiness,

Turning my purge to food, thou throwest me

         Into more sicknesses.

Thus doth thy power cross-bias me, not making

Thine own gift good, yet me from my ways taking.

Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me

         None of my books will show;

I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree,

         For sure then I should grow

To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust

   Her household to me, and I should be just.

Yet, though thou troublest me, I must be meek;

         In weakness must be stout;

Well, I will change the service, and go seek

         Some other master out.

Ah my dear God! though I am clean forgot,

Let me not love thee, if I love thee not.