Today February 21 2021 is 114th birth anniversary of W. H. Auden
"...How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
"...How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the
torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree...."
('Musée des Beaux Arts', December 1938)
“...‘Musée des Beaux Arts’ is not, in itself, a difficult
poem but it is baffling if one does not know where it is coming from. Auden was
a much travelled poet. In 1938 he spent several months in Belgium. They were
ominous months: war was looming.
The ‘Musee’ in the poem is the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of
Belgium, in Brussels. It has a magnificent collection of the 16th-century
artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s paintings. We should picture the poet
sauntering, on a quiet summer afternoon, through the galleries, savouring
Bruegel’s masterpieces. The poem has no rhyme scheme – it’s a stream of
unstructured consciousness.
The first painting the poet sees is that of Herod’s census –
the sinister search for the unborn Jesus narrated in the Gospel of Luke. Mary and
Joseph flee to Bethlehem. In the gospels ‘the miraculous birth’ is an
all-important event. But in the painting it is no big thing. Not as important,
for example, as unloading a cart is to the carter, or skating is to children on
their ‘pond at the edge of the wood’. A baby is born in a barn? So what. It
happens every day in Bethlehem. The census-taking is going on at an improvised
office window. The painting is all detail, as is everyday life...”
Has this poem influenced B S Mardhekar's (बा सी मर्ढेकर) following poem?
"अजून येतो वास फुलांना
अजून माती लाल चमकते;
खुरट्या बुंध्यावरी चढून
अजून बकरी पाला खाते.
...
भूकंपाचा इकडे धक्का
पलीकडे अन् युद्ध-नगारे;
चहूंकडे अन् एकच गिल्ला,
जुन्या शवांवर नवे निखारे.
...
तरीहि येतो वास फुलांना,
तरीहि माती लाल चमकते;
खुरट्या बुंध्यावरी चढून
तरीहि बकरी पाला खाते;
तरीहि माती लाल चमकते;
खुरट्या बुंध्यावरी चढून
तरीहि बकरी पाला खाते;
..."
'The Census at Bethlehem', 1566
Artist: Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569)
courtesy: Wikimedia Commons