John Keats has very beautiful lines:

When old age shall this generation waste
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say't
"Beauty is truth truth beauty," that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need, to know.

These lines are taken from his "Ode on a Grecian Urn". They contain a great philosophy. Many of us think of John Keats as merely sensuous, denied heights of philosophical thoughts. We have been infinitely fascinated by his luxurious line "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." That line is full of luxury of sensuousness, taken away from the context. But if you fit in the line where it occurs the idea communicated is not of sensuous beauty or emotion. The idea is a truth by itself, which proclaims the intensity of his thought. The same truth we find in the lines above given. The burden is "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." And then you have to remember that that is all that you require to know. Poets have sung of beauty but they seldom refer to truth that must be identical with beauty. Whenever they think of beauty they think in terms of sensuous beauty or emotion. In Keats you find beauty in philosophy of truth or in pursuit of truth. Here you have something like spiritual intensity or consummation, generally associated with sages, living away from the crowd and its pursuits.

What is the idea? Beauty is our goal. We have to be face to face with it, but we have to see in it the great truth. Then alone that beauty is a permanent experience, a thing of constant joy. There is beauty in truth which is a name for harmony. This is the great idea we gather on intense consideration of John Keats' poetry. I have a similar feeling when I think of Sarojini's poetry. To my mind, she is a supreme singer of beautiful songs, songs bathed in melody and thought. A supreme artist that she is, she is capable of creating a new and rich world of ideas fastening herself upon little themes. Remember that all themes are Indian, thoughts are Indian, melody is of India but the language is pure English, delicate and fine and sensuous. A very creditable synthesis, indeed! She is two things, in the main: a supreme artist and a fine melodist with the background of an intense thinker. Her thinking may not be methodical. She is a poet, a being of emotions. And emotions lead her to splendour of thought and beauty. All this is quite in keeping with her profession which is that of a poet and an artist. She cannot begin with ideas. If she does there will be a suggestion that she is not a poet, nor an artist, who has to begin all compositions in supreme forgetfulness to catch the reality and something of perennial preciousness. Emotions first and last. And still when you think of her poems you find plenty of sacred and beautiful thoughts. That is her chief merit. With melody she had wedded mind. In the marriage of mind and melody you have a singer of eternally beautiful songs.

As you think of her themes you might think of meeting trifles in her poems. I have said that she is a great artist, and she has those qualities which transform little things, make them great and dignified, in fact, instruments of great thoughts, powerful enough to transport us with unlimited joy. Actually, she creates. Her descriptive powers are tremendous but more than those powers are her gifts for creation. And the result is this magnificence of beauty and melody in her songs. One thing more. There is an air of romance about what she writes. That is genuine poetry of something that is not entirely of this earth. Poetry has two functions to teach and delight through ideal imitation. These two functions her poetry performs and performs in a characteristic fashion. All the time she seems to sing, seems to be lost in the rapture of beauty, of songs and of words. But think there is thought, think there is nothing that can be crossed out without taking something from the beauty of the song and also something from its meaning. She has words, apt and melodious and delicate. What more do you want? She sings, she delights and she instructs, all the time. And then her poetry is ideal imitation. I call that imitation ideal because she is more than a representative poet, a genuine artist and a creator, who has a mission behind all her romance of words and ideas and images.

Here is an excellent example of her words, images and perpetual music. A little of reflection will point to a long string of ideas behind beautiful images:

Lightly, O lightly we bear her along,
She sways like a flower in the wind of our song;
She skims like a bird on the foam of a stream,
She floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream.
Gaily, O gaily, we glide and we sing,
We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

What a perfection of music? And then to music there you find added wealth of new and captivating images. That is not all. There is a great idea behind. Think of the subject, whose picture here is in words and music. First thing to note is certainly a great delicacy is borne lightly and in the wind of song. It must be beautiful and capable of exciting great intensity of melody and beautiful ideas. It might be associated with something intensely beautiful. What a great touch of lightness? It skims like a bird on the foam of a stream. It floats like a laugh and that too from the lips of a dream. Has a dream lips and can it laugh? Why not think of some beautiful person dreaming and laughing. And laughing why? The person must have got her love. And so this happy laugh. That is about what is inside it. But what is it? It is carried like a pearl on a string. The picture is complete, complete in outlines, emotions and associations. Say that is the song of "Palanquin-Bearers".

Now think of the sensitiveness of the poet. What a little and mundane object! And the reaction is this wealth of images and emotions and associations. This is wealth of the poet herself, who can give meaning and location to little airy things with such a gusto!

Softly, O softly we hear her along,
She hangs like a star in the dew of our song;
She springs like a beam on the brow of the tide,
She falls like a tear from the eyes of a bride.

Imagination has been used, and used so marvellously. The palanquin is like a tear from the eyes of a bride, who is inside it. Why tears? The bride is going to meet her love. There can be tears, but tears bathed in unlimited joy and also indicative of the joy to follow. Indeed, a great idea behind the palanquin's becoming a tear from the eyes of the bride. All is suggestive of a great hope, hope of happiness. And the song of the palanquin-bearers suggests how happiness must be found in work, and still greater measure of it in the happiness of others.

Why are the palanquin-bearers happy? They are doing their work and carrying some weight. I say "weight" in the physical sense. Else there is no question of weight because the person inside is a great beauty, brimming with love and hope, unspeakable and unheard of. The palanquin-bearers are nevertheless happy because they have found their work. In work they have the blessing of God. Still you have another idea. And that idea can make the entire world happy. Find happiness in the happiness of others. Happiness is personal. We have to agree there. But it is impersonal in the sense that it depends upon the happiness of others. Happiness is catching. You find others happy. You are yourself happy. There is this measure of happiness for the palanquin-bearers because they are aware of the happiness that is to come to the bride they are carrying so gaily and so softly in the wind of their song. Happiness makes their labour, labour of love. And little wonder that they think the palanquin and its load a pearl on a string!

Think of the diction, words and images used to convey her emotions, and why not her ideas, rooted in humanity? There is no indication of efforts. All is spontaneous. One might say that the poet is writing in her mother-tongue. There is no evidence of straining. Such a galaxy of associations and images, communicated (one might say, painted) in beautiful words, is very creditable to an Indian writing in English. Real poetry must be sound and sense both. Lovers of sound, lovers of music, will declare her poetry all music, all emotion, which can soon transport or transform one who gets into it and its rapture. Even those who look invariably to meaning behind sound (I am certainly with them) there is splendour of thought and of idealism, which is highly elevating and compelling. There is something of the other world, dreamy and thrilling. But behind all this, there is life, an entry into the complications of life, which can be imagined upon intense reflection in consequence of her songs.

This is a justification to call her poetry a "criticism of life". It is sensuous as all good poetry has to be; more than that, it is serious as good poetry ought to be a real criticism of life. There is no escape from life, as from emotions, for a genuine poet. Sarojini Naidu is verily a great poet, sensuous and serious both. Else who can think of her entry into active politics, who can think of her becoming Governor of a great province in such a time of crisis?

It is true that as Governor she was like a bird in a cage. But she did her work in an excellent fashion. From her acts and speeches it was clear beyond a doubt that she had enough sense and profundity of thought. This is nothing new in her. Behind her music it is always possible to find great ideas, ideas that might ask us to think of her as a great thinker thinking, it is true, through melodious words, images and emotions. Think of this song:

Where the voice of the wind calls our wandering feet,
Through echoing forest and echoing street,
With lutes in our hands ever-singing we roam,
All men are kindred, the world is our home.

Here is a song of wandering singers, wandering through forests and streets, endlessly singing their songs. What are these songs about? There is one theme, and that is of the fundamental unity of man throughout the world, from pole to pole. What is that unity? We have come from God and we have the divine essence. The truth is: there is one race all over the world and that is called the human race; there is one blood and that is called the human blood. There is, thus, no occasion for differences. This is the song, put in the mouth of the wandering singers by the poet. Here the poet herself is out in her mission of converting the entire humanity to her way of thinking, the way of thinking that is bound to lead to peace and happiness and brotherhood. Here you have a serious thinker, who has the magic of words, sweet and delicate, and magic of images all familiar and yet captivating. This combination of seriousness with melody is her achievement. Who can think of poets in the presence of such a grandeur of thought as mere idlers, playing in the hands of emotions and sensuousness? Poets, I maintain, can change our course of life. They can be great reformers. A reformer must have the power of feeling intensely and long. This poets possess and they are great reformers. Is it, then, wrong to think of our poet as the poet of the nation, a poet filled with unlimited patriotism that is synonymous with internationalism? Call that love of humanity. That love Sarojini Naidu has in plenty. And the result! Her words, they may be all emotion, are full of meaning and significance, combined with rhythm. Naturally, her poetry instructs, delights and moves. Read it for a necessary preparation for a revolution. I might add she has in this respect the same power which I associate with the poetry of her brother (Harindranath), the power to revolutionise.

Harindranath has rightly sung:

A poet wields a mighty power,
The nation cannot lose it:
Poets, behold your singing hour
Has come and you must use it.

This is a call to poets. I have a feeling of a similar call made by Sarojini Naidu to poets in her poetry of splendour. In her same song of "Wandering Singers" she continues:

Our lays are of cities whose lustre is shed,
The laughter and beauty of women long dead;
The sword of old battles, the crown of old kings,
And happy and simple and sorrowful things.

Wandering singers, let us remember, are our own poets. They have to wander all the world over. Physically it might be impossible for them. Don't you know they have the great power of vision and imagination, which poets alone possess? Helped by their poetic vision they can cover the entire world. Are they not singers for entire humanity? Whenever we think of a very great poet like Shakespeare or Kalidas or Tagore we have to say that he is a poet for the entire humanity and for all times to come. About poets it has to be noted that they sing melodiously, perennially. In course of their life, their share of rain and sunshine, their extensive journey, physical or mental, they gather some great wisdom and this they communicate with the help of their melody. And so these singers sing of cities whose lustre is shed, of laughter and beauty of women long dead, of the sword of battles and the crown of old kings, and of what not. Is this not entire life with all its complexities? Life today and yesterday and also tomorrow, that life is their theme. And so the wandering singers sing:

What hope shall we gather, what dreams shall we sow?
Where the wind calls our wandering footsteps we go.
No love bids us tarry, no joy bids us wait:
The voice of the wind is the voice of our fate.

The burden is the voice of fate and that is the voice of the wind. The wind is the hope of the world. That is to indicate the complete picture of conditions of present life. And so these singers have hope and dreams. Not a bad idea! Here is something which is to assure us success in near future. We canot tarry; we cannot wait. Let us march and soon realise our dreams. Dreams are necessary; they stimulate thinking and thinking is accompanied by action. Ultimately, the voice of fate resolves itself into this voice or call for action. We cannot stop till we have reached the goal. The goal is the revolution itself, a new way of life, full of happiness and comfort.

Sarojini Naidu sings and thinks simultaneously. What is the secret of this unique combination? The great thing about art is that it is consummated in moments of utter forgetfulness. What is this thinking along with singing melodiously for eternity? Sarojini has thought deeply, sensitively and captivatingly. Even when she sings she unfolds her great intensity of thought. But the great thing is that her thoughts appear all emotions and melody as you read them, sing them, or think of their associations. Here is a song of "Indian Weavers":

Weavers, weaving at break of day,
Why do you weave a garment so gay?
Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild,
We weave the robes of a new-born child.

Read these lines over and over again. You have reinforcement of emotion and music. Words are sweetly arranged. And what of thoughts? You might not think of them at all. But just think. You have a great idea. The idea flashes as you progress through the song:

Weavers, weaving at fall of night,
Why do you weave a garment so bright? . . .
Like the plumes of a peacock, purple and green,
We weave the marriage-veils of a queen.

Weavers, weaving solemn and still,
What do you weave in the moonlight chill?
White as a feather and white as a cloud,
We weave a dead man's funeral shroud.

A complete picture of life and man's happiness and sorrow on earth is visualised in this beautiful song that captures our attention. The break of day finds one happy. The weaver weaves something gay with a promise for future of brightness. There is the new-born child. Even fall of night finds one still farther in the journey towards happiness. There is the marriage-bell singing; there is the preparation for the marriage-veil. But what happens afterwards? The moonlight is chill; freshness and warmth are gone; the entire drama of man has been enacted and he is found no longer in the kingdom of living beings. He is beyond life and its joys. There is the dead man's white shroud. The race has been run; life's joys have been dried. This is the story communicated by this song of "Indian Weavers".

And this Sarojini's idea is her songs, delightful as perfect emotion and thoughtful like the words of a philosopher, who has passed his life in converse with the world and yet who has not grown this worldly. Her songs have beauty that lives to instruct and delight. This beauty of her songs moves, and that too so magnificently!

O little mouse, why dost thou cry
While merry stars laugh in the sky?
Alas! Alas! my lord is dead!
Ah, who will ease my bitter pain?
He went to seek a millet-grain
In the rich farmer's granary shed;
They caught him in a baited snare,
And slew my lover unaware . . .
Alas! Alas! my lord is dead.

Sing this song. There is an ordinary reference to a mouse whose life is ended because he is caught in a snare, all of a sudden. Now get to the idea. Life is full of accidents. We attach too much importance to life but it comes to an end quite suddenly, and what is left behind is a feeling of sadness. But that feeling of sadness must soon be over. Else there is none to console the sorrow-stricken. Consolation must come from within. Life without this consolation will be in vain. You might weep for some moments but soon this weeping and wailing should be over. Weeping is necessary as an outlet for grief but that has not to be practised long lest it should pass into our character and nature. That passing into our character and nature will be the end of our life and work on earth. This is not to be our aim. And this cannot be the aim of a reformer and a revolutionary in poetry. And so let us sing, think and move. And thus we should go onwards. Take life as it is. There is sadness in it. Feel it, experience it, and then come to its end. Let us then sing. And so this divine singer sings on, and singing goes on instructing delightfully for all time to come:

Cover mine eyes, O my love!
Mine eyes that are weary of bliss
As of light that is poignant and strong,
O silence my lips with a kiss,
My lips that are weary of song!
Shelter my soul, O my love!
My soul is bent low with the pain
And the burden of love like the grace
Of a flower that is smitten with rain:
O shelter my soul from thy face!

There is ecstasy, excessive joy and bliss. And yet more of it. And so the course of life runs in hope and still more of hope. Here you have a profound message. The message is of insatiable desires. Also the hint is for ceaseless efforts. And if that message is taken there is a promise of all-round beauty on earth. That is also the message of Sarojini Naidu, a singer of beautiful songs and sweet thoughts.

There is a poem "Coromandel Fishers" by Sarojini Naidu. The idea behind the poem is life's reality and its continued success.

She sings:

The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother,
the waves are our comrades all.
What though we toss at the fall of the sun,
where the hand of the sea-god drives?
He who holds the storm by the hair,
will hide in his breast our lives.

Here is a message of fellowship, of real brotherhood, indeed, of working together for our emergence and of manifestation of our divinity in our visions, thoughts and deeds. We have to take it up.

We have complications in life. We have to take them as our mother or friend or comrade. There has to be nothing but love and this love has to consummate in real fulfilment of man.

She merrily continues to sing:

But sweeter, O brother, the kiss of the spray
and the dance of the wild foam's glee:
Row, brothers, row to the blue of the verge,
where the low sky mates with the sea.

How concrete and penetrating the poet in her expression! We just marvel. But that is not the end.

Let us go ahead. That is eternal music for us and we have to hear it and pass it into our life, into the world we live in.