10th English - Memory Poem

Unit 1 - Life

Let me but live my life from year to year,

With forward face and unreluctant soul;

Not hurrying to, nor turning from the goal;

Not mourning for the things that disappear

In the dim past, nor holding back in fear

From what the future veils; but with a whole

And happy heart, that pays its toll

To youth and Age, and travels on with cheer

So let the way wind up the hill or down,

O’er rough or smooth, the journey will be joy:

Still seeking what I sought when but a boy,

New friendship, high adventure, and a crown,

My heart will keep the courage of the quest,

And hope the road’s last turn will be the best.

- Henry Van Dyke

Unit 2 - I am Every Woman

A woman is beauty innate,

A symbol of power and strength.

She puts her life at stake,

She’s real, she’s not fake!

The summer of life she’s ready to see in spring.

She says, “Spring will come again, my dear”.

Let me care for the ones who’re near.”

She’s the woman – she has no fear!

Strong is she in her faith and beliefs.

“Persistence is the key to everything,”

Says she. Despite the sighs and groans and moans,

She’s strong on her faith, firm in her belief!

She’s lioness; don’t mess with her.

She’ll not spare you if you’re a prankster.

Don’t ever try to saw her pride, her self-respect.

She knows how to thaw you, saw you – so beware!

She’s today woman. Today’s woman, dear.

Love her, respect her, keep her near…

- Rakhi Nariani Shirke

unit 3 - The Secret of the Machines

We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,

We were melted in the furnace and the pit

We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,

We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.

Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,

And a thousandth of an inch to give us play:

And now, if you will set us to our task,

We will serve you four and twenty four hours a day!

We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,

We can print and plough and weave and hear and 

light,

We can run and race and swim and fly and dive,

We can see and hear and count and read and write!

But remember, please, the Law by which we live,

We are not built to comprehend a lie,

We can neither love not pity nor forgive,

If you make a slip in handling us you die!

Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes,

It will vanish and the stars will shine again,

Because, for all our power and weight and size,

We are nothing more than children of your brain!

- Rudyard Kipling

Unit 4 - No Men are Foreign

Remember, no men are strange, no countries foreign

Beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes

Like ours: the land our brothers walk upon

Is earth like this, in which we all shall lie.

They, too, aware of sun and air and water,

Are fed by peaceful harvests, by war’s long winter starv’d.

Their hands are ours, and in their lines we read

A labour not different from our own.

Remember they have eyes like ours that wake

Or sleep, and strength that can be won

By love. In every land is common life

That all can recognise and understand.

Let us remember, whenever we are told

To hate our brothers, it is ourselves

That we shall dispossess, betray, condemn.

Remember, we who take arms against each other

It is the human earth that we defile.

Our hells of fire and dust outrage the innocence

Of air that is everywhere our own,

Remember, no men are foreign, and no countries stange.

- James Falconer Kirkup