Citizen Kane

I first watched Citizen Kane in 2009. For me 2009 was the year I actually buckled down and decided that I wanted to be a critic, and that I had better take this job seriously. With that in my mind, I switched my focus from new releases to retrospectives, designing myself to be able to do what I had at first loathed in critics: make obscure references to movies I had never heard of.

As a point of fact, when I actually got into the business I heard of those movies. And I heard more about those movies. And more. And, when the AFI named Citizen Kane as the best film of all time, I decided that it might just be a good idea to see it.

I do not regret that choice.

Citizen Kane, as described by Welles himself, is the story of a man who gains the world and loses his soul (and based on the life and times of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst). In addition to being the first great independent movie, Citizen Kane is the first great character drama.

The character drama always uses some minor plot as fodder for the psychological action, and, in Citizen Kane’s case, it is the search for the meaning of Kane’s last words “Rosebud.” One reporter, in a quest to unearth the truth about this, ends up unearthing the darker side of Kane.

The movie is told throughout flashbacks, each one done from a different character’s viewpoint. In the cinematography of the film, each character’s viewpoint is subtly inserted. An example of this is the bright lighting on Kane’s face as he is first met by one of his wives (a singer), and the incredible shadow that falls on it when the divorce is decided.

On the off chance that you do not already know, I will not tell you what Rosebud is. All I will say is this: that when you finally are greeted with Rosebud, you understand Kane. In the process of understanding Kane, you understand the thought of unhappy successful men: that they would give all of their fortune up for the one thing that makes them happy.

P.S. – An amazing movie! A must watch.
Thumbs Up. 5 stars!!

Remembering Things Past

By Dwarkanath Girimaji on his brother Lakshmanarao Girimaji who passed away in Thirthahalli at the age of 97, on Dec 2nd.

There was chaos all over the country during 1946-48. India had just tasted independence. The government at the centre was constantly trying to unify the country. But there were several hurdles. At that time, the Nizams were ruling Hyderabad, presently the Andhra Pradesh. These guys didn’t want to join themselves with the rest of the country. They had full support from the English and the other powers, the result of which was dangerous. There were different kinds of anti-social and anti-national activities prevailing in Hyderabad and similar regions around it. These were followed by protests from local people. The main reason was the evil planning of the English and others who hated our nation.

Though the northern part of the country underwent division, the southern part of the country wasn’t extremely affected. Many other powers who couldn’t tolerate this were trying to disintegrate our country. In this crucial situation, the Nizam government who couldn’t express themselves directly, started the defective system in the state and began terror activities. They were called the ‘Razaakars’. Many patriots, not only in the state, but also from other parts of the country came together to put an end to these terrorists.

Regarding the weapons and other techniques, these patriots were helped from all over the country. The reason why I mentioned this is, many hand bombs were being prepared in Shimoga also, and sent to Hyderabad. These bombs were being prepared under the guidance of Girimaji (Lakshmanrao Girimaji). He had learnt this art in his several years of service in the Army. He’d served in Egypt, Singapore, Osaka and various other African and Asian countries for around 5-6 years, with the British Army, before the ending of Second World war. Though I’ve met and worked with such patriots, I don’t remember if any of them are alive now.

Today, it is time to remember this Girimaji. After that, the Iron Man Patel started an Army movement on the pretext of starting a Police movement and secured Andhra Pradesh for India using his strength and power. But the present generation won’t know any bit about this.

Lakshmanrao Girimaji’s military job also ended in a strange manner. The behavior of the white soldier changed mysteriously after the war. The patriots couldn’t tolerate this. An English officer wrongly said, “You Bloody Indians”, after which the soldiers retaliated and left the army. After that, he lived in Shimoga, and he even refused the job of a policeman. Instead, he went into electrical business with the experience he’d gained in the military, and took the responsibility of his whole family. Though he stayed in Thirthahalli, he was directly responsible for the starting and functioning of many small scale industries in Bangalore, Shimoga etc. He’s been honored several times by the rotary and many other organizations.

Though he hadn’t earned a lot of money, he was loved by all and it’s not necessary to elaborate about his fame and popularity. Such an elderly and great man was once touched by a painful and insulting situation. Several years back, the state government announced that it’d grant pension to the freedom fighters and the veteran soldiers who’d taken part in the Second World war.

But Lakshmanrao Girimaji’s application was rejected and neglected even though he had total eligibility for it! He’d rejected it earlier when the British government had announced a similar programme. But this time, after 50 years, his application, letters were all overlooked and this put him in a state of humiliation and disappointment. This indicates an evil and corrupted of the authorities. But this great man never wished any of these and there was no necessity either.

There’s no need to elaborate further on the several good deeds carried out by him for the people around.

As written by Dwarkanath Girimaji, his brother who always loves and respects him, in Kannada.
And Translated by Nitin, grandson of Dwarkanath Girimaji.

Da Brotherhood!

Well, this is a post I’m writing after a long time, and it’s for a cause.

Ever been fascinated by secret societies..!? Or by super powerful fraternities.. That last generations??? Now you have a chance to do all this online…. Join Da Brothehood – http://www.facebook.com/pages/GANG-NEXT-DA-BROTHERHOOD/190888907206

A movement to form the largest online fraternity .. You’re just a click away from finding out what it takes to be a brother …. All men are created equal but only some go on to be brothers .. !!!

MTV is staging a show called ‘GangNext’ where they’re looking for a cool gang, throughout the country. The gang is called Da Brotherhood, and they’re one among them, competing to excel is this competition.
The winner gets to watch the Fifa world cup held in South Africa next year. Please check out the Fan Page on Facebook, suggest changes and be a fan!
The Brothers would be proud of you!

Phantasmagoria

Last page last time is one story I can never forget. It has everything in it. The thrill, the pace, a masterpiece of a budding writer, and also some shock in the End!(I’m sure you’ll agree with me Rohit.)

Yes, I’m talking about Phantasmagoria, a blog created by one of my closest friends Rohit.

This is the link – www.rohitraosblog.blogspot.com

I will explain about the specialities of this blog later.
But make sure you read it now!

I’m sure you’ll be happy that you came across his Blog(And mine too! )

Green Mile

Believability in “The Green Mile” may stretch to the bursting point. And the prison guards in this death row movie might seem friendlier than anyone. But thanks to brilliant storytelling, built around the great, pounding heart of a prisoner called John Coffey, that rubbery skin never breaks.

It doesn’t break because you don’t want it to. That’s the hokum, that’s the magic of writer-director Frank Darabont’s movie, adapted from Stephen King’s six-part, serialized novel.

When nursing home resident Paul Edgecomb (Dabbs Greer) watches Fred Astaire singing “Cheek to Cheek” in a rerun movie one day, he dissolves into tears. Prompted by fellow resident Elaine, (Eve Brent), he recounts the most bittersweet episode of his life, when he was a prison guard in Louisiana.

In Edgecomb’s story, we return to the 1930s, where death row inmates spend their final months or years awaiting execution at the Cold Mountain Penitentiary. Every prisoner has his final morning, when he must walk the green linoleum floor (hence the title) leading to the electric chair. When that day comes, head guard Edgecomb (now played by Tom Hanks) and his detail are there to make sure things go as smoothly and calmly as possible.

The execution is a gruesome, antiquated procedure, as the inmate sits on a chair known as “Old Sparky,” attended by tight-lipped officials and the friends and family of the murdered. Edgecomb and his men, including Brutus “Brutal” Howell (David Morse) and Dean Stanton (Barry Pepper), take great pride in their humane professionalism.

It’s never easy to say goodbye to a prisoner, no matter how hideous his crime. But in 1935, Edgecomb faces the most excruciating ordeal of his career when John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), a seven-foot-tall African American, enters the compound.

The enormous, muscular Coffey – sentenced to death for the murder of two young girls – would be intimidating if he wasn’t so gentle, respectful of white folks and terrified of the dark. Edgecomb has a growing conviction that Coffey may not be guilty of that horrendous crime.

But in the meantime, he has other more pressing concerns, including Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison), a sadistic new guard who uses his family connection to the governor to ignore Edgecomb’s authority, and William “Wild Bill” Wharton (Sam Rockwell), a demented killer whose Bubba charms belie an actively evil soul.

Edgecomb is also preoccupied with other prisoners ahead of Coffey in the death queue, such as Arlen Bitterbuck (Graham Greene), a quiet man who seeks spiritual solace before his death; and Eduard “Del” Delacroix (Michael Jeter), a charming man who befriends a willful little mouse he dubs Mr. Jingles. But Coffey’s time will come, as it surely must.

Darabont, who also adapted King’s “The Shawshank Redemption” for the screen, pumps these and other fascinating elements into that ever-expanding balloon. From its deceptively easygoing beginning to the heart-wrenching finale, “The Green Mile” keeps you wonderfully high above the cynical ground.

Darabont has also selected a superb cast to maintain this affecting buoyancy. Hanks is very engaging as Edgecomb, whose dawning conscience – particularly regarding Coffey – informs the entire drama. Morse brings a deep-seated integrity to Brutus, whose gentle wisdom controls his temptation to pummel Wetmore into pulp. As Wetmore and “Wild Bill,” Hutchison and Rockwell are so infuriating, so blissfully hateful, you may find your fingernails boring holes into your palms. And then there’s Duncan, whose presence is literally and figuratively, the biggest thing in the movie. I’d tell you more but that would be letting the enjoyable helium out of the balloon.

P.S. – Tom Hanks rules, as usual!

Pulp Fiction

“PULP FICTION” is everything it’s said to be: brilliant and brutal, funny and exhilarating, jaw-droppingly cruel and disarmingly sweet. Quentin Tarantino, the postmodern Boy Wonder of American crass culture, for whom the only thing to fear is boredom itself, has produced a work of mesmerizing entertainment. To watch this movie (whose 2 1/2 hours speed by unnoticed) is to experience a near-assault of creativity.

The multi-plot story, whose design becomes apparent as the movie progresses, is too involved to outline.Essentially, the film’s a narrative circle of interconnecting, time-jumping episodes, in which various pulp-fictional gangsters, molls and palookas deal with bizarre occurrences in their lives. In the end, everything comes together in a multi-ironic Tarantino reverie. The never-a-dull-moment drama is propelled by its crazy-casting dream team: Samuel L. Jackson is unforgettable as a philosophical killer who quotes Ezekial before his ritual executions. Uma Thurman, serenely unrecognizable in a black wig, is marvelous as a zoned-out gangster’s girlfriend. Bruce Willis is a pug-faced charm as an aging boxer who refuses to throw a fight. And who knew John Travolta would produce the sweetest performance of his career as a good-natured goon?

As with his “Reservoir Dogs,” Tarantino delves into the working-stiff world of crime. For the characters in “Pulp Fiction,” killing, stealing and breaking fingers are merely occupational banalities.

Travolta and Jackson—like modern-day Beckett characters—discuss foot massages, cunnilingus and cheeseburgers on their way to a routine killing job. The recently traveled Travolta informs Jackson that at the McDonald’s in Paris, the Quarter Pounder is known as “Le Royale.” However “a Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.”

“Come on,” says Jackson, as they approach the room of their victims-to-be. “Let’s get into character.”

With chatty asides like these, Tarantino makes unwilling—and disconcertingly easy—conspirators of the audience, no matter how outlandish the action. In one of the movie’s most harrowing sequences, Thurman has a drug overdose and Travolta—stuck with babysitting her for his boss—has to perform improvisatory surgery. It’s horrifying and oddly funny. As Travolta and drug-dealer Eric Stoltz attempt to revive her with the help of a medical book, the movie enters into some kind of combination. I loved that part.

Tarantino, an L.A. video store clerk-turned-auteur, was raised on filmic bloodletting. Screen violence, assimilated secondhand from such films as “Straw Dogs,” “The Godfather” and “Scarface,” is his most immediate reference point. But he transcends himself by putting brutality in quotation marks, making it traipse hand in hand with absurdity. It may be that, with “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction,” Tarantino has over-mined his muse. Should he make another work remotely like either film, he’ll run the risk of rendering his work commonplace. But for now, his material is witty, ironic and inspired—although the irredeemably squeamish should know to stay away. In “Pulp,” you’ll see what it is to clean up a car spattered with brain gore. But you’ll also see an amusing Harvey Keitel, as a freelance clean-up man (dressed as if for a prom) supervising the icky proceedings. In the film’s most exhilarating showpiece, Willis undergoes an extended, hair-raising suspense ride that includes sword violence, rape, gunfire and torture. After the most brutalizing experience of his life, Willis returns to his girlfriend, who promptly starts crying. Shaken beyond compare, Willis is the one who has to do the consoling.

“How was your breakfast?” he inquires, as pleasantly as he can.

P.S. – This one tops my list of favourites!

The Beatles (Vol.2)

After a gap of a couple of weeks, I’m finally here, writing about a couple of other albums by The Beatles.

I managed to grap three albums by The Beatles viz., Please please Me, A Hard Day’s Night and Help, and even listen to them fully.
You see, it’s easy to get all the albums. But, to listen to it, and write about them takes a lot of time. So, I’ve been going slow.

Please please Me

I’ve just got this one, and the adjective is “formative” — i.e., not that great by Beatles standards. To which I should add that “not that great by Beatles standards” is pretty damn great compared to most other pop music. The early records generally get low grades because they’re not as good as the later stuff. I guess I’m not going to rate this album since it’s their first.

A Hard Day’s Night

You’ve seen the film, now buy the album! The best thing about this release is that there are no covers! All originals! The problem is that by producing an entire album solely of originals, the Beatles fall back on formula. Verse, chorus, verse, sappy teen love sentiments, a hook hook here and a hook hook here and it all starts to sound suspiciously the same. It doesn’t help that the first three songs, “I Should Have Known Better”, “I’ll Be Back”, and “When I Get Home” are all the same song. George gets a vocal spotlight on a song he didn’t write, “I’m Happy Just To Dance With You”, which could have come off an assembly line. Which means that aside from the title track, whose authorship I’m not sure of, the best songs are all Paul’s. “Can’t Buy Me Love” you know as both a great song and a great cliche, “Things We Said Today” is a moody anomaly amongst Paul’s more typically cheerier ditties, and “And I Love Her” weds bossa nova to flamenco in a haunting ballad. Still, all in all a big improvement despite its inconsistencies.
I’m probably giving it a 7 on 10.

Help!

Here is where the Beatles as we know and worship them begin to arrive. It’s not as cohesive as it could be, and there are still some throwaways like “Dizzie Miss Lizzie”, and the Fabs still rely on formula a bit too much on certain songs (“It’s Only Love”, “Another Girl”). The only thing that stops this album from being a masterpiece is that the later albums are even better!
9 on 10 is what I give to Help! I mean, c’mon man, this album contains ‘Yesterday’, ‘Ticket to Ride’ and other masterpieces.
“You’re Going To Lose That Girl” rewrites “She Loves You” for a song only a third as good, but a third of “She Loves You” equals ten times the square root of Bluroasis or whoever else’s best single(Just listen to the originals).

P.S. – Probably, a couple of other albums are remaining. Will be back with them shortly!

The Beatles (Vol.1)

All I’ve been doing lately is listening to The Beatles, and of course, loving them! I’m one of the lucky persons to catch hold of some of their’s Legendary albums. I just thought I could put across some of my thoughts about them.

Writing about the Beatles leaves me with a certain dilemma: to say something incisive and original that has not already been said before. Doubtless you have heard their tunes, unless you’ve been stranded on a desert island for the past 50 years to 60 years. I discovered this band when I was in high school. I hadn’t heard to much of them then. The only people who don’t like the Beatles are people born before 1940 who can’t stand that rock’n'roll racket and others.The Beatles would try almost anything and try to make it work as good pop music, and they succeeded more often than not, showing that pop musicians didn’t have to stay stuck in a familiar rut but could grow and change. Secondly, the Beatles wrote their own material: a commonplace today, but revolutionary for the time. The Beatles were the greatest thing to happen to 20th century music, and only someone who hates pop music or is just being contrary can deny that. Of course, not every single musical moment they released on vinyl was great, or even good – nobody’s perfect.

Something you oughta know about them –
The Beatles were an English rock and pop group formed in Liverpool in 1960 who became one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands in the history of popular music. During their years of international stardom, the group consisted of John Lennon (rhythm guitar, vocals), Paul McCartney (bass guitar, vocals), George Harrison (lead guitar, vocals) and Ringo Starr (drums, vocals).

At present, I’ve managed to collect three of their albums – Revolver, The Beatles(The White Album) and Abbey Road.

Revolver

This is one astonishing leap forward for the Beatles, which means yet another astonishing leap forward for popular music as a whole.The electronic soundscapes and experimentation broke new ground in incalculably influential ways, and this may be the Beatles’ most genuinely original music, which is saying a lot. You know, the thing about the Beatles is that they borrowed a great deal of their sound from other musicians; very few people are completely original talents – everyone borrows from everyone else. What matters is what you do with the material you’ve learned from others. ‘Oh’ and ‘Smoking Pot’ certainly had a lot to do with it, too – “Tomorrow Never Knows” could only have been performed and concieved on psychedelics. I also am pretty sure my list of influences is incomplete; who knows who else the Fabs were listening to at the time. But, a couple of songs are duds. Good day sunshine is one which rolls to no purpose. Doctor Robert is typically boring. Got To Get You Into My Life also sounds completely out of place! But those are the only bad ones. The rest is typically brilliant. ‘d like to point out right now that I’m nitpicking the Beatles and holding them up to higher standard than most everyone else – who cares if a few songs on the album aren’t perfect? Most bands would kill for the lesser tunes I just mentioned. And the classics here combine to make for perhaps the most killer lineup on any piece of Beatles plastic: “Eleanor Rigby”, “And Your Bird Can Sing”, “Taxman”, “For No One”, “She Said She Said”, “I’m Only Sleeping”, and, oh I give, “Yellow Submarine” even. No use me describing each of those songs, since I could fill up a page easy on each one. Their best? Maybe, maybe not. Of course it goes without saying that you ought to own this today if you don’t have it; if you haven’t heard it, you are missing out on a crucial piece of 20th century Western music.

This album, I give 9.6 on 10.
Thumbs Up!!

The Beatles(‘The White Album’)

You probably know this one as the White Album; it’s a double-album sprawl that’s either your favorite or least favorite Beatles platter. It’s my favorite, simply for the fact that there’s so much, and so much of it is great that I can easily overlooking the duds, overly slight pop songs, and experimental misfires. This might very well be the greatest pop album of all time, for it captures the world’s greatest pop band at the peak of their powers trying to prove that they can tackle any style of music up to that point in history with assured mastery. One aspect of their lives doubtless shaped the musical expression of the Beatles like no other, on this album: WE MADE THEM RICH. The Beatles, in fact, owned a sort of monopoly status at the top of the pop charts for a couple of years, and as I recall this was about the time John came out with the “we’re more popular than Jesus” comment or whatever it was he said that attracted so much attention.

I want to give it 10! Why not?
This album gets 10 on 10.
If you’re at all interested in the Beatles, this is the best place to start since it covers all their many sounds and moods in one place. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Long Long Long”, “Savoy Truffle”, and “Piggies” are all classics I love!

Abbey Road

Abbey Road was the last studio album recorded by The Beatles. And this album, is also, like the others I’ve heard, a masterpiece! They succeeded, at least on the second half, a sustained suite concieved by Paul that ties a string of little ditties that wouldn’t have stood on their own, but tied together combine to make perhaps the finest side of Beatles music produced. It all comes together in “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End”, which contains the only Ringo drum solo the Beatles released on their studio albums. And then, as a masterstroke, McCartney comes back for the brief “Her Majesty”, a simple little ditty that deflates the album, and the Beatles’ career, on just the right note.
George steals the show by writing the album’s two best songs, “Something” and “Here Comes The Sun”. However, the rest of the non-suite originals are subpar. “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” has a killer heavy metal riff, but isn’t much of a real song. Octopus’ Garden is a kiddy number and Maxwell’s silver Hammer is insubstantial. Despite all that, the album as a whole is brilliant, and a masterpiece for the second side alone.

I give it 8 on 10!

P.S. – Volume 2 will contain stuff about the other albums..!

Iron Man

Forget about all the fantastic action. Dismiss the disarmingly smart, wry screenplay, and ignore the phenomenal supporting cast. Feel free to overlook the dozen components that make Iron Man the most uniquely entertaining superhero movie in a long time … I’ve got the one main reason that this flick is worthy of your two hours and ten bucks right here, and that reason is named Robert Downey Jr. Like many movie fans , I consider Downey to be sort of an old friend. We all wept when Jami Gertz noticed his odd demise in Less Than Zero, we loved watching his evolution in films like True Believer and Chaplin, and we all felt pretty great when the guy finally kicked his well-publicized drug addiction.

Downey is a survivor, no doubt, and he’s also a refreshingly engaging actor to watch — and boy was I thrilled when Marvel announced that this would be the guy to portray Tony Stark. To those who don’t know the Stark character from the comic books, let me just make it clear: Downey is the perfect guy to play a smug yet charming, sarcastic yet likable, and perpetually womanizing multi-billionaire mega-genius with a bum ticker. We all know the guy can play sly, snarky, smart characters, so much of Iron Man’s early stuff is light lifting for the actor — but when he starts getting angry? Noble? Heroic? The guy is aces across the board. Bottom Line: Downey has paid his dues, he’s been through a lot of hell, and now he’s a freakin’ superhero who delivers the best popcorn flick performance since Johnny Depp first played pirate. Sometimes Hollywood actually works.

So there’s two full paragraphs on the lead actor. As far as Iron Man as a whole … I’ll put it in terms that the superhero movie geeks will understand: It’s almost as good as Spider-Man 2, X-Men 2 and Batman Begins. Yeah, it’s that kind of quality. Only Iron Man is a pretty unique entry in its own right. It’s got some violence, some edge, and some seriously snarky attitude. But then it also has a little something to say about the nature of a society that allows itself to be governed by its own high-tech weaponry — which means that not only is Iron Man a very fun, very slick, and very consistently clever movie; it also has some sort of a social conscience. The flick says “Hey, if the best X-Men flicks can tackle some real-life issues, then why can’t Iron Man make a comment or two on a world that sometimes seems to value money and guns above all else?”

OK, now I’m making Iron Man sound like a preachy affair, which it most certainly is not. As is often the case in “first” flicks (and trust me, there will be more), Iron Man is an origin story. It tells the tale of how a brilliant multi-billionaire industrialist named Tony Stark is abducted by terrorists after showing off his latest (mega-deadly) rocket to the U.S. military, how the guy manages to escape (in rather dazzling fashion), and how he returns home to create his technological masterpiece: A stunningly flashy suit of armor that’s got jet-packs on the feet, rockets in the arms, pulse laser thingies in the hands, and the world’s smartest computer in the helmet. Frankly you could make nine movies and not get into all the awesome things that Stark’s suit can do — but for now we’ll just deal with Part One.

Upon arriving back in America, Tony proposes (publicly!) that his company should stop making weapons and perhaps focus on something a bit more user-friendly — but now I’m just rambling about a fairly simple story, and obviously you’ll want to discover all this stuff for yourself. Suffice to say that Iron Man capably blends a fairly typical origin story with a satisfyingly kinetic action story — and boy is it a whole lot of fun. Lots of times when you’re dealing with movies like this, the “talky stuff” is the material you struggle through just to get to the “fun stuff,” but thanks to Downey (and a stellar supporting cast that includes Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Clark Gregg, and Leslie Bibb) the “in-between” material is actually quite compelling! Like the best superhero movies, Iron Man boasts a screenplay that takes a whole bunch of wild spectacle and (somehow) infuses it with a lot of wit, humanity, warmth, and intelligence.

Truth be told, I could devote extra paragraphs to the flick’s excellent musical score, its quick yet unrushed pace, its special effects and action bits … but really, you already know by now if you’re going to see Iron Man. I’ll just simply say that I think it’s easily one of the most entertaining superhero movies ever constructed, and that it kicks off the 2008 summer movie season in very classy and crowd-pleasing style. Everyone on board deserves a pat on the back for their work on this flick, but it’s especially cool for both Downey and Favreau. This inevitable blockbuster represents a big leap forward for both filmmakers, and I’m thrilled to see them cook up something so damn cool together.

Bring on the sequel please. I’m waiting for it..

Sonnets II

Sonnet XXIX

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

P.S. – I love this one. It’s brilliant!