Today's Beautiful Gem: `Seal Lullaby' by Rudyard Kipling.

I always used to feel better whenever I used to listen to the
song 'main jaaguure tuu so jaa, main gaauun tuu chhup ho jaa'.
[Lata, Bharat Vyas, Vasant Desai in Do aankhen baarah haat].
The mother keeps awake while the children sleep. The parents'
love towards children is very difficult to describe. One has
to be a parent to experience it. Not only the human kind has
this parental affection, the animal kingdom too possesses
this quality in plenty. The cow licks the calf, the tigress
picks its cub with her mouth, the bird feeds its younger ones
grains and worms. Here is a lullaby by Kipling. The she-seal
in the sea sings for its little one!

"Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
        And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us
       At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
       Ah, weary wee flippering, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
       Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas."

Om s'aantih: Peace! - J. K. Mohana Rao

<:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:>419<:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:><:>