Song of the Rain - Kahlil Gibran - Critical Analysis

 This is a poem on the opulence of the rain, penned by Kahlil Gibran...

Myriads of poetry have tried to express the divine nature of the rain. Only some of them have invigorated readers' hearts and made them sensitive to its importance, efficiency and avail.

Some of the most beautiful expressions in any language come autobiographical. 

Here, the rain tells its story incorporating the things it does to nature's creations.

This analysis attempts to paraphrase the whole poem with the properties of a descriptive essay.

The rain thinks too high off itself (and why can't it). This is evident from the tone of the lines in the poem.

The intermittent fall of the rain has been crystallized by calling it dotted threads. It is dropped from heaven (the abode of God and his minions) by the gods. Here, the divine inclusion is done so as to realize that rain is a special offering from divinity itself.

Nature then takes it to adorn her fields and valleys on the blue planet. Then we have an important interesting stanza that tells us more about its origin from the places high in the troposphere.

Lord Ishtar is invoked in the same stanza. He seems to be a contradiction in himself. He's the God of War and love.

The "pearls" are then used to embellish the "garden" that is the earth. 

We see the cocky demeanour of the rain in the next stanza.

It says, "when I cry the hills laugh" referring to those physical formations that get elated during rain.

The flowers rejoice and all of them make merry. 

The fields and the clouds are called lovers. In this romantic association, the rain acts as an aid in their courtship. 

A "messenger of mercy", it calls itself. Thunder declares its arrival and the rainbow, its departure.

The rain is like the cycle of earthly life, it begins at the feet of wild natural elements. As we all know, it emerges from the sea due to the physical process of evaporation.

When it sees a field in need, it descends to embrace it. It touches the windows with its "soft fingers" and its arrival becomes as merry as a welcome song.

"All can hear it but only the sensitive can understand" This is explained as follows: -

The smell of the rain, when it rains, is wonderfully aromatic. Rainy days are the ones that children enjoy playing, lovers exchange romantic gestures, and old people reminisce about their childhood.

The flowers show off their colours, some animals mate to give light to the next generation, etc.

There is bliss born in every creature and inanimate thing on this planet.

 A sensitive and receptive mind can appreciate value which is important in the lives of God's creations.

It is understandable and natural that something of such a calibre to get cocky in a suave manner

On His Blindness- Critical Analysis

Some of my thoughts on the poem "On His Blindness" 

                   - by John Milton...

God works in mysterious ways.

For aeons, one question remains unanswered-- is God benefiting from humanity?

This essay tries to answer that proposition and discuss how Milton's personal experiences are universalised as justification of the ways of God to men.

Milton goes blind age of 44 (roughly half his lifetime). 

Losing one's eyesight is obviously a profoundly troubling one. The blind person is suddenly at risk in all kinds of ways. 

The special tragedy of this particular speaker is that he loses his sight at an unusually early stage of his life. He now inhabits a world that seems "dark" as well as "wide", thus doubly challenging.

Predicaments happen to all. Whether one gets out of it or gets inundated in it largely depends on one's outlook. Here we are given an example of a physical disability of Milton.

To help his/her creation God or nature has designed the human psyche in such a way that it has its own distinct way of compensating for a physical disability. 

At the dawn of the new millennium came the news of the human genome had been decoded. All the 20,000 genes that we carry today are similar to those of our ancestors.  

It is said that God or nature has given us this instinct because the need to achieve, like the need to reproduce, the need to eat, and the need to drink, is too important to be left to chance. 

History shows that the hunger for achievement is a highly evolved one and undoubtedly the strongest. Humans have succeeded in the battle of survival of the fittest only due to this inherited psyche. 

It has given man the throne of blue marble.

Losing one's physical ability is a deeply troubling one. For a lucky few their disability can be rectified but others find themselves in a challenging position. For the latter, it is only acceptance that takes them forward. Their worlds are depressing for a while but as they say, time heals everything.

All of us get frustrated at times and many blame the creator. Milton in his poem too gets frustrated and angry at God, but only during those periods of nebulous drift that one introspects and gets an understanding of life.

Thus, every problem is an opportunity.

At the volta of the sonnet, the answer to Milton's foolish question is given by patience- a virtue that has been decorated by Christian art because of its role in helping one to achieve courage and wisdom.

God does not need man's work (= his own gifts), it is like a child trying to feed its mother. Of course, the love is appreciated but it is obvious. 

Milton, for example like a true Christian desires, to work for God by serving him, but this desire of his stems from his wish to avoid being chided on the judgment day. 

Milton compares God to a king. Kings have unlimited resources, especially if they control land as large as earth (= God). 

The comparison is done to contrast God with the Lord in the biblical parable.

He has plenty of minions to do their bidding. It does not matter if one fulfills the role or not.

To answer the proposition posted in the introduction, we must understand why we are on this planet. Charles Darwin made a monkey out of us and the theory of evolution given by him 150 years ago says that we are here by chance, from inanimate things life evolved; so the question of whether God benefits from humanity is answered in the negative. 

They only serve him who "best bear his mild yoke".

When we exercise humble acceptance of the circumstances and rely on God to sustain us, we inevitably become stronger.