SOURCE: "Indian Ethos in Sarojini Naidu's Poetry," in Perspectives on Sarojini Naidu, edited by K.K. Sharma, Vimal Prakashan, 1989, pp. 78-113.

I

With the change in literary fashions, critical attitudes and critical values also change. The canons of criticism which are highly esteemed in one age are discarded in favour of new ones in another. In the changed perspective, the great writers of the preceding age wane into mediocity in the succeeding one, and old idols become new abhorrences. The new aesthetics which evolved in the wake of modernism in the European literature during the inter-war years, depedastalized many literary demi-gods who were looked upon with awe and inviolable reverence by the earlier generations. Even the greatness of Shakespeare for whom Arnold has asserted: "Others abide our question Thou are free!"¹ has to be vindicated by a Wilson Knight on the basis of modern aesthetics.

It is not surprising therefore that now when The Golden Threshold is judged by the touchstone of The Wasteland, "the gifted poetess," the Nightingale of India of yester years, on whom Arthur Symons and Edmund Gosse showered unreserved encomium and about whom that "profound judge of life and literature"² Sri Aurobindo said that she had "qualities which make her best work exquisite, unique and unchallenged in its own kind",³ is now relegated to mediocrity, unworthy of any attention as a poet. Sisir Kumar Ghose avows nonchalantly: "Her period piece juvenilia had been, we now see, praised out of proportion, if not for the wrong reasons",⁴ and then lapses into unpardonable heresy: "Most of her polite, meaningless words, stylised product of a "delicate, dreaming soul ', have been blown away by age. There hangs a mild, musty museum air about most of the poems. Nothing will bring back the glory departed... . The Muses have become menacingly cerebral".⁵ Nissim Ezekiel condescends to remark: "It was Sarojini's ill luck that she wrote at a time when English poetry had touched rock-bottom of sentimentality and technical poverty. By the time it recovered its health she had entered politics, abandoning the possibility of poetic development and maturity."⁶ R. Parthasarathy praises her for her versification but discards her as a poet: "Prosodically, her verse is excellent; as poetry, it disappoints. In spite of her having pumped enough feeling into them, the poems invariable have trouble getting started."⁷ The modesty of the poetess who said: "I am not a poet really. I have the vision and the desire, but not the voice. If I could write just one poem full of beauty and the spirit of greatness, I shall be exultantly silent for ever; but I sing just as the birds do, and my songs are as ephemeral",⁸ is treated as a confession and enthusiatic ignoramuses credit her for it with honest assessment of her place as poet.

It is not only Sarojini Naidu who is pilloried so mercilessly, Toru Dutt, Manmohan Ghosh, Aurobindo Ghosh, Joseph Furtado, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya are all condemned as "colonialitis"⁹ by this T. S. Eliot sycophancy. They are questioned for "their outsize reputations"¹⁰ and are considered worthy "today only of historical interest".¹¹ Manmohan Ghose is described as "an extreme case of "Colonialitis' and Laurence Binyon is chided for praising him instead of asking him "to stop composing pastiches of the English poets".¹² Binyon's commendation of Ghose is called damaging to the poet: "More than one Indian English poet has been ruined by such adulation."¹³ The greatest Indian English epic of Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, is dubbed as "embarrassingly bad: dated in language, emotionally inflated to the point of grotesqueness and confused in ideas".¹⁴ The literary heresy does not spare even the great Rabindranath Tagore about whom the following judgment is passed by David Cevet:

. . . the old man himself lived out a certain contradiction since his concern with the eternal had manifested itself in an eternal garrulousness. And since it is arguable that Rabindranath never did write more than half a dozen good poems it might be said that his concern for moral purity had ended in his emasculation of the vocabulary as well as repression of the instinct.¹⁵

In their enthusiasm the new Indian English poets assert: "Indian poetry in English doesn't seriously begin to exist till after independence. . . . The unacknowledged birth of this poetry took place in the 1950s".¹⁶ R. Parthaswamy writing in the vein of Adil Jussawalla remarks: "It is true that Indian English verse has a past that is best forgotten. There are far too many skeletons in the cupboard for the poet to feel comfortable or secure today."¹⁷

It is forgotten that to fall in line with the Romantics or Later Romantics (Pre-Raphaelites and Aesthetes) and not in line with Hulme-Pound-Eliot school of poetry, is not to be devoid of poetic sensibility and creative urge. If the subjectivity, exotic imagination and profound emotional rapture are not conducive to the health of poetry, objectivity, wit, irony and arid intellectualism too do not necessarily contribute to great poetry. The vogue of Eliot is, however, on the wane now and even his most zealot admirer F. R. Leavis has gradually moved on the road of rejection of his great master in his last years. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent" is condemned and the doctrine of impersonality so crucial to Eliot's aesthetics and poetry firmly dismissed by Leavis when he remarks: "The relevant truth, the clear essential truth, is stated when one reverses the dictum and says that between the man who suffers and the mind which creates there can never be a separation."¹⁸ "The whirligig of literary taste is about to come full circle", and hence a rerevaluation of old masters, including "the foremost of Indian English poetesses is timely".¹⁹

II

Sarojini Naidu was in reality a born poet, one eminently endowed with the temperament and nature of true artist. Except for Keats there are very few poets who had such an overpowering passion for poetry as she. To her it was poetry that charged her every moment, to which she directed her best efforts and in which she burned. This keen poetic sensibility did not desert her even after she had stopped writing verses and entered politics. It expressed itself through her conversations, letters and speeches. According to Jawaharlal Nehru she gave to politics an artistic touch. Speaking on her death he said: "she did that amazing thing, she infused artistry and poetry into the national struggle, just as the Father of the Nation had infused moral grandeur to it." Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel called her and a great politician remarked that thoughts came to her like verses and she wove them into a pattern which bore the immutable mark of her gifts of poetry. The famous Singhalese journalist, D. B. Dhanapala, said about her: "She talks politics but in the words of a poet".²⁰ Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya made a very significant observation when she wrote: "Those who are poets first and last, continue to be poets, whether they be lying in the trenches or in the enemy's dungeons. .. . If Sarojini has stopped composing verses, she has certainly not ceased being a poetess. That same spirit comes out in all her movements and forms of expression."²¹

Sarojini Naidu's poetic sensibility is reflected in her profound passion for delight in beauty. In this respect too she comes very close to Keats who prefixed to the first volume of his poems the motto from Spenser:

What more felicity can fall to creature
Than to enjoy delight with liberty?

Arthur Symons writes about Sarojini: "Her desire, always, was to be "a wild free thing of the air like the birds, with a song in my heart'. A spirit of too much firm in too frail a body. . . . " What Sidney Colvin said of Keats, "the spirit which animates him is essentially the spirit of delight: delight in the beauty of nature and the vividness of sensation, delight in the charm of fable and romance, in the thoughts of friendship and affection, in anticipations of the future, and in the exercise of the art itself which expresses and communicates all these joys", is equally true of Sarojini. She believes in "a poet's craving for beauty, the eternal beauty" and in a letter to Arthur Symons writes: "What in my father is the genius of curiosity the very essence of all scientific genius in me is the desire for beauty. Do you remember Pater's phrase about Leonardo da Vinci, "curiosity and the desire of beauty'.²² Elaborating her remark Arthur Symons writes: "It was the desire of beauty that made her a poet; her "nerves of delight' were always quivering at the contact of beauty. To those who knew her in England, all the life of the tiny figure seemed to concentrate itself in the eyes; they turned towards beauty as the sunflower turns towards the sun, opening wider and wider until one saw nothing but the eyes."²³

Sarojini's love for beauty was strengthened by the seductive Persian and Urdu poetry on which she was nourished at Hyderabad. While in England she met the aesthetic poets of the nineties, who were averse to the dross and drab of mundane life which had entered the English landscape with the growth of industrialism and struck at the very roots of man's aesthetic sensibility. They were also full of deep passion for delight in beauty. Sarojini Naidu found an echo of her own aesthetic temperament in their works. She was introduced by Edmund Gosse to these poets of the Rhymers' Club Arthur Symons, William Watson, John Davidson, Earnest Dowson, Oscar Wilde, George Moore, Henley and others which was founded in the 1880's by William Butler Yeats and Earnest Rhys. She learnt from these members of the Rhymers' Club "the verbal and technical accomplishment, the mastery of the phrase and rhythm" of English verse and like them stuck to the verbal felicity, metrical discipline, and musical texture.

Sarojini's intense love for beauty, her natural bent of mind and her happy life, both with her parents and husband, led her to experience profound delight in life. She once wrote to Symons: "the very 'Spirit of Delight' that Shelley wrote of dwells in my little home". She had drunk from the sweet fountain of life to her fill. When Gopal Krishna Gokhale once asked her, ""Do you know, I feel that an abiding sadness underlies all that unfailing brightness of yours? Is it because you have come so near death that its shadows still cling to you? ', she replied, "No, I have come so near life that its fires have burnt me.'"²⁴

Sarojini's delight in life was further intensified by the age in which she lived. It was the age of cultural renaissance and national upsurge in India. Earlier Keshub Chunder Sen, Dayanand Saraswati, Mahadev Govind Ranade, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Surendranath Banerjee and later Mrs. Annie Besant, Dadabhai Naoroji, Balgangadhar Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Aurobindo Ghosh, Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi had infused new life and boundless enthusiasm in the country. Sarojini too like Keats could sing: "Great spirits now on earth are sojourning",²⁵ or like Wordsworth could reminisce:

Bliss was in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven²⁶

Sarojini's temperament and conditions of her life and age, all combined to make her a lyricist of joy in life. Those who criticize her for drawing a blank over sordid and coarse aspects of Indian life, demand from her what she being a genuine person and poet, could not have given them without sounding unnatural and unauthentic.

III

Sarojini Naidu has written large number of love lyrics full of profound feelings and saturated with soul-slumbering sensuousness which a critic calls the "latticed window view of nuptial aspiration".²⁷ Some of these songs are subjective in nature and represent her soulful attachment to her husband. Her love for her husband is also symbolized in the songs woven round the popular Radha-Krishna legend. These love poems of Sarojini express her deep emotions of yearning, aspiration, fulfilment, and ecstasy.

The most important of Sarojini Naidu's poems are, however, those which reflect the colourful pageant of Indian life in all its picturesque variety. "The panorama of India's ageless life", writes K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, "fascinates her without end."²⁸ It is not surprising that she won her early renown in the West because of her representation of the soul of the East and the ethos of India. Edmund Gosse wrote admiringly:

It has been .. . the characteristic of Mrs. Naidu's writing that she is in all things and to the fullest extent autochthonous. She springs from the very soil of India; her spirit, although it employs the English language as its vehicle, has no other tie with the West. It addresses itself to the exposition of emotions which are tropical and primitive, and in this respect, as I believe, if the poems of Sarojini Naidu be carefully and delicately studied they will be found as luminous in lighting up the dark places of the East as any contribution of savant or historian. They have the astonishing advantage of approaching the task of interpretation from inside the magic circle, although armed with a technical skill that has been cultivated with devotion outside of it.²⁹

The credit for discouraging Sarojini from providing in her verses "a réchauffé of Anglo-Saxon sentiment in an Anglo-Saxon setting", and awakening her to the need of "some revelation of the heart of India, some sincere penetrating analysis of native passion, of the principles of antique religion and of such mysterious intimations as stirred the soul of the East long before the West had begun to dream that it had a soul",³⁰ goes Edmund Gosse. He writes how after discarding her early poems, he entreated her "to write no more about robins and skylarks, in a landscape of our Midland counties, with the village bells somewhere in the distance calling the parishioners to church, but to describe the flowers, the fruits, the trees, to set her poems firmly among the mountains, the gardens, the temples, to introduce to us the vivid populations of her own voluptuous and unfamiliar province; in other words, to be genuine Indian poet of the Deccan, not a clever machine-made imitator of the English classics".³¹ After this encounter with Gosse, Sarojini's extraordinary creative imagination has tried to capture the visions of Indian ethos in all its entirety. It is, however, the vision of a poet who glows with passion for delight in beauty. The realities that she portrays are therefore "not quite of the earthy".³² She herself says, "I am of a tribe of beauty". She enshrines in her verses beautiful images of Indian life and ethos.

Living in the age of national upsurge Sarojini is led to dream of the beautiful vision of the glorious India "that is to be", and put in her heart and soul to make it a reality. Answering the querry of the veteran national leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale, "Why should a song-bird like you have a broken wing"? she replies:

Shall spring that wakes mine ancient land again
Call to my wild and suffering heart in vain?

Behold! I rise to meet the destined spring
And scale the stars upon my broken wing!"³³

Sarojini projects an impressive image of the resurgent India in this poem:

The great dawn breaks, the mournful night is past,
From her deep age-long sleep she wakes at last!
Sweet and long-slumbering buds of gladness open
Fresh lips to the returning winds of hope,
Our eager hearts renew their radiant flight
Towards the glory renascent light,

(The Broken Wing, p. 145)

The call of the awakened motherland is so powerful that she is unable to luxuriate in the beautiful fairy island of Janjira "where life glides by to a delicate measure, with the glamour and grace of a far-off time". She is compelled to join her countrymen in their struggle for freedom:

Yet must I go where the loud world beckons,
And the urgent drum-beat of destiny calls,
Far from your white dome's luminous slumber,
For from the dream of your fortress walls,

Into the strife of the throng and the tumult,
The war of sweet Love against folly and wrong;
Where brave hearts carry the sword of battle,
'Tis mine to carry the banner of song,

The solace of faith to the lips that falter,
The succour of hope to the hands that fail,
The tidings of joy when Peace shall triumph,
When truth shall conquer and love prevail.

("The Faery Isle of Janjira", pp. 121-22)

In the poem "Awake", which Sarojini dedicated to her friend Mohamed Ali Jinnah and recited at the Indian National Congress Session of 1915, she exhorts the motherland to wake up and shake off the shackles of slavery:

Waken, O mother thy children implore thee,
Who kneal in thy presence to serve and adore thee!
The night is aflush with a dream of the morrow,
Why still dost thou sleep in thy bondage of sorrow !

India's children of all communities and creeds Hindus, Parsees, Mussulmans, Christians pledge to restore to it its pristine glory:

Lo we would thrill the high stars with thy story,
And set thee again in the forefront of glory.

("Awake", p. 180)

All these children are united as one soul by the strong ties of love for their country:

One heart are we to love thee, O our Mother,
One undivided, indivisible soul,
Bound by one hope, one purpose, one devotion
Towards a great, divinely destined goal.

("The Anthem of Love", p. 131)

Sarojini pays a tribute to her brave compatriots who sacrificed their lives for peace in the First World War:

Gathered like pearls in their alien graves
silent they sleep by the Persian waves,
Scattered like shells on Egyptian sands,
They lie with pale brows and brave, broken hands,
They are strewn like blossoms mown down by chance
On the blood-brown meadows of Flanders and France.

("The Gift of India", p. 146)

and asks Britain not to forget them when it pays memorial thanks to its own countrymen:

When the terror and tumult of hate shall cease
And life be refashioned on anvils of peace,
And your love shall offer memorial thanks
To the comrades who fought in your dauntless ranks,
And you honour the deeds of the deathless ones,
Remember the blood of my martyred sons!

("The Gift of India", p. 147)

When owing to her deeper involvement in political life, she is unable to perform her wifely duties and is physically separated from her husband, she exhorts him:

Give not to me, but to the world, winged words
Of Vision, Valour, faith-like carrier words
Bearing your message O'er all lands and seas,
Scatter the lustre of resplendent deeds
O'er journeying world words like immortal seeds
Of sheaves enriching freedom's granaries.³⁴

Whenever there was any calamity in any part of the country, Sarojini was deeply pained by it as if it were her own personal loss. At the time of the disastrous flood in 1927 in Gujerat, she addresses a moving poem to angry God:

Stay the relentless anger of thy hand

Thine aweful war, O Lord, no longer wage
Against our hopeless hearts and heritage,
Nor rend with ravening doom our ancient land.

Cease lest thy maddened creatures turn from thee
And in the midnight of deep wild travail
Mock thee with mouths of bitter blasphemy.

("Gujerat", The Feather of the Dawn, p. 5.)

IV

During active participation in the national struggle for independence, Sarojini Naidu came in close contact with the great political leaders of her age Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, M. A. Jinnah, Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru and others. Tara Ali Beg refers to four great men her father, Gokhale, Jinnah and Gandhi who really shaped her life and influenced her.

The most powerful of these influences was, however, of Gokhale who remained her political mentor from 1907 to 1914. He advised her, "consecrate your life, your thought, your song, your charm to the Motherland". She in a letter to Gokhale (November 28, 1917) called him "a beacon light, and a symbol of national service". Paying a tribute to him on his death she addressed her second "Memorial Verse", "Gokhale ', to him:

Heroic heart lost hope of all our days
Need'st thou the homage of our love or praise?
Lo, let the mournful millions round thy pyre
Kindle their souls with consecrated fire
Caught from the brave torch fallen from thy hand,
To succour and to serve our suffering land,
And in a daily worship taught by thee
Upbuild the temple of her unity.

(p. 159)

In another poem, "In Gokhale's Garden", she symbolizes him as life-giving showers of rain. Like the rain which revives and infuses life in meadows, barren rocks and plants, Gokhale infused life in the dead hearts of Indians and awakened them to free their motherland from alien yoke. Describing his great qualities of head and heart, she writes:

Steadfast, serene, dauntless, supremely wise,
In earth's renascent bloom with prescient eyes
You sought hope's symbol and you strove to teach
My heart with patient, high prophetic speech
The parable of Beauty's brave emprise.

(The Feather of the Dawn, p. 1)

Though dead, he lives in the hearts of his countrymen for ever and inspires them to brave deads to accomplish the liberty of the country:

Your ashes lie in old Prayag, but we,
Heirs of your spirit's immortality,
Find in your vision Love's perpetual flame
Of adoration lit in freedom's name,
Rekindling all our dream of liberty.

(The Feather of the Dawn, p. 2)

Equally inspiring is his poem addressed to Bal Gangadhar Tilak "who taught our nation freedom's Gayatri," i.e. "freedom is my birth-right and I will attain it":

How shall our mortal love commemorate
Your sovereign grandeur, O victorious heart?
Changeless, austere, your fame is counterpart
Of your own storied hills inviolate.
The darkness of our land, and star-like dart
The lustre of your wisdom, valour, art,
Transfiguring sorrow and transcending fate.

("Lokmanya Tilak", The Feather of the Dawn, p. 3)

Sarojini Naidu pays a glowing tribute to Umar Sohani (died on 6 July, 1926), a millionaire philanthropist of Bombay, who was one of the first Muslim nationalists to join Mahatma Gandhi when he launched his Civil Disobedience Movement.

You were not of my kindred or my creed,
O kingly heart, but closer still you stood
In gracious bond of tender brotherhood
Than they who blossomed from my father's seed.

("Uman", The Feather of the Dawn, p. 4)

Sarojini's father Dr. Aghorenath Chattopadhyaya, descended from the ancient family of Chatterjees who were noted throughout Eastern Bengal as patrons of Sanskrit learning, and for their practice of Yoga. He took his degree of Doctor of Science at the University of Edinburgh in 1877, and afterwards studied brilliantly at Bonn. On his return to India he founded the Nizam College at Hyderabad, and devoted himself to the cause of education till his death. He exercised deep influence on Sarojini and her brother, Harindranath. The elegy Sarojini wrote on his death epitomizes his nature and qualities beautifully:

Farewell, farewell, O brave and tender age.
O mystic jester, golden-hearted child
Selfless, serene, untroubled, unbeguiled
By trivial snares of grief and greed or rage;
O splendid dream in a dreamless age
Whose deep alchemic vision reconciled
Time's changing message with the undefiled
Calm wisdom of thy vedic heritage.

("In Salutation to My Father's Spirit", p. 160)

Sarojini Naidu has dedicated her poem of national integration, "Awake", to M.A. Jinnah who was her close friend and whom she considered a great man of India. After Gokhale she was more attached to Mahatma Gandhi than to any other Indian leader. Gandhiji in Young India compared her with Mirabai in terms of her devotion to the cause of freedom and lyricism. She on her turn said: "Gandhi is my Kanhaya; I am his humble flute". In the poem. "The Lotus", which she has dedicated to him, the symbolizes him as lotus, the national flower of India:

But who could win thy secret, who attain
Thine ageless beauty born of Brahma's breath,
Or pluck thine immortality, who art
Coeval with the Lords of Life and Death?

("The Lotus", p. 167)

V

Born in Hyderabad, a city in which Hindu and Muslim cultures fused and flowered, Sarojini imbibed its cosmopolitan spirit and strived for Hindu-Muslim and national unity with greater fervour than other Indian leaders. She expresses her deep concern at the strifes and differences among the people of different creeds and communities in her country, when she writes:

Shall hope prevail where clamorous hate is rife,
Shall sweet love prosper or high dreams find place
Amid the tumult of reverberant strife
'Twixt ancient creeds, 'twixt race and ancient race,
That mars the grave, glad purposes of life,
Leaving no refuse save thy succouring face?

("Twilight", p. 77)

She is, however, hopeful that these discordant notes will disappear and there will usher in the happy times of love's delight:

Quick with the sense of joys she hath foregone,
Returned my soul to beckoning joys that wait,
Laughter of children and the lyric dawn,
And love's delight, profound and passionate,
Winged dreams that blow their golden clarion,
And hope that conquers immemorial hate.

("Twilight" p. 78)

In her famous poem "The Call to Evening Prayer", Sarojini Naidu projects an impressive image of the secular India where all religious faiths flourish freely:

Allah ho Akbar! Allah ho Akbar!
From mosque and minar the Muezzins are calling;

Ave Maria! Ave Maria!
Devoutly the priests at the altars are singing,

Ahura Mazda! Ahura Mazda!
How the sonorous Avesta is flowing

Naray "yana! Naray "yana!
Hear to the ageless, divine invocation!

(p. 136)

Sarojini Naidu has inculcated from Hyderabad not only her love for Urdu and Persian but also a deep acquaintance with and regard for Muslim life and culture. She has written touching verses about Muslim heroes and heroines "A Song from Shiraz", "Humayun to Zubeida", "Ode to H. H. The Nizam of Hyderabad", "The Song of Princess Zeb-un-Nissa and Muslim Religion", "The Prayer of Islam", "The Night of Martyrdom", etc. "A Song from Shiraz" captures the oriental spirit of Shiraz and brings forth in immemorial lines the loving soul of Islam:

The singers of Shiraz are fasting afar
To great the Nauraz with sarang and cithar . . .
But what is their music that calleth to me,
From glimmering garden and glowing minar?

The stars shall be scattered like jewels of glass,And beauty betossed like a shell in the sea,Ere the lutes of their magical laughter surpass,The lute, of thy tears, O Mohamed Ali!

Sarojini has eulogized the loving and gracious nature of the late Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Mahbub Ali Khan, the well-beloved of people, and the glamour of his princely state in two of her poems. In "Ode to H. H. The Nizam of Hyderabad" she describes how the people of different religious faiths flourish in his cosmopolitan state and do obeisance to him:

The votaries of the Prophet's faith,
Of whom you are the crown and chief
And they, who bear on vedic brows
Their mystic symbols of belief;
And they, who worshipping the sun,
Fled O'er the old Iranian sea;
And they, who bow to him who trod
The midnight waves of Galilee.

(p. 29)

She prays to God to give him strength and grace to stand for truth and virtue:

God give you joy, God give you grace,
To shield the truth and smite the wrong,
To honour virtue, valour, worth,
To cherish faith and foster song
So may the lustre of your days
Outshine the deeds Firdausi sung,
Your name within a nation's prayer,
Your music on a nation's tongue.

(p. 30)

In one of the memorial verses, "Ya Mahbub" she mourns the death of the Nizam and pays a glowing tribute to him. The title of the poem is derived from the device, "Ya Mahbub' (Beloved) designed on the state banner of the Nizam.

O hands that succoured a people's need
With the splendour of Haroun-al-Rasheed
O heart that solaced a sad world's cry
With the sumptuous bounty of Hatim Tai
Where are the days that were winged and clad
In the fabulous glamour of old Baghdad.
And the bird of glory used to sing
In your magic kingdom .. . when you were king?

(pp. 157-58)

"The Prayer of Islam" composed on Id-ul-Zoha in 1915 is soaked with the memorable spirit of the great humanistic religion of Muslims. Each stanza ends with some of the ninety-nine beautiful Arabic names of God as used by followers of Islam "Hameed ', "Hafeez ', "Ghaffar ', "Wahab ', "Waheed ', "Quadeer ', "Quad ', "Rahman ', "Raheem'. The poem ends with the inspiring lines:

We are the shadows of Thy light,
We are the secrets of Thy might,
The visions of Thy primad dream,
Ya Rahman! Ya Raheem.

(p. 169)

With remarkable ingenuity she weaves the refrain, "Y' Allah! Y' Allah!" used as the burden in the prayers chanted by wandering Muslim beggars:

Time is like a wind that blows,
The future is a folded rose,
Who shall pluck it no man knows.
Y' Allah! Y' Allah!

("Wandering Beggars", p. 165)

Equally touching is the prayer of the old beggar woman sitting in the street under a banyan tree:

In her weary old age, O dear God is there none
To bless her tired eyelids to rest? . . .
Tho' the world may not tarry to help her or heed,
More clear than the cry of her sorrow and need,
Is the faith that doth solace her breast:
"Lailah illa-l-Allah
La ilaha illa-l-Allah,
Muhammad-ar-Rasul-Allah "

In the poem about the Imam Bara of Lucknow, which is a chapel of lamentation where Muslims of the Shia community celebrate the tragic martyrdom of Ali, Hassan, and Hussain during the mourning month of Muharram, Sarojini gives a vivid account of the passion-play that takes place to the accompaniment of the refrain, "Ali! Hassan! Hussain!"

Out of the sombre shadows,
Over the sunlit grass
Slow in a sad procession
The shadowy pageants pass
Mournful, majestic, and solemn,
Stricken and pale and dumb,
Crowned in their peerless anguish
The sacred martyrs come.
Hark, from the brooding silence
Breaks the wild cry of pain
Wrung from the heart of the ages
Ali! Hassan! Hussian!

("The Imam Bara", p. 152)

Still more graphic is the description of the mourning procession given in "The Night of Martyrdom":

Blackrobed, barefooted, with dim eyes that rain
Wild tears in memory of thy woeful plight,
And hands that in blind, rhythmic anguish smite
Their bloodstained bosoms to a sad refrain
From the old haunting legend of thy pain,
The votaries mourn thee through the tragic night,
With mystic dirge and melancholy rite,
Crying aloud on thee Hussain! Hussain!

The poem ends with a subtle irony on the celebration:

Why do thy myriad lovers so lament?
Sweet saint, is not thy matchless martyrhord
The living banner and brave covenant
Of the high creed thy Prophet did proclaim,
Bequeathing for the world's beautitude
Th' enduring loveliness of Allah's name?

("The Night of Martyrdom", The Feather of the Dawn, p. 6)

VI

Sarojini Naidu has pictured in several of her poems the Hindu religious ethos in all its variety by the treatment of Radha-Krishna legend, hymns of gods and goddesses, and different festivals. The myth of the temporal love of Radha, the milkmaid and Krishna, the cowherd, symbolizes the yearning of human soul for the infinite. It is very popular among Indians and many renowned poets like Jayadeva, Vidyapati and Surdas have woven their memorable verses round it. Krishna, the Divine flute-player of Brindaban, plays the tune of the Infinite that lures every human heart away from mortal griefs and attachments. The sweet music enchants Radha, the beautiful village belle and spell-bound by it she is drawn towards Krishna irresistibly. Krishna responds to her love but the consummation eludes her. She is unable to get the fulfilment of her soul's yearning. Sarojini has enshrined this eternal love in her poems, "Song of Radha, the Milkmaid", "The Flute-player of Brindaban", "Poems of Krishna", and "Songs of Radha". "Song of Radha, the Milkmaid" reveals how Radha is so much lost in the thought of her lover that she is unable to utter anything except his name:

I carried my curds to the Mathura fair ...
How softly the heifers were lowing . . .
I wanted to cry, "Who will buy
These curds that are white as the clouds in the sky
When the breezes of Shrawan are blowing?"
But my heart was so full of your beauty, beloved,
They laughed as I cried without knowing:
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
How swiftly the river was flowing.

(p. 112)

Drawn by the sweet music played by Krishna, the fluteplayer of Brindaban, Radha follows him undauntedly and forsaking all earthly ties:

Still must I like a homeless bird
Wander, forsaking all;
The earthly loves and wordly lures
That held my life in thrall,
And follow, follow, answering
Thy magic flute call.

("The Flute Player of Brindaban", p. 161)

Two songs of "Poems of Krishna" are entitled as 'Kanhaya' and 'Ghanashyam'. In the former is shown how mother Yashoda tries to punish Kanhaya on listening from village men and women the complaints of his mis-chief:

Boastful One! Boastful One! Yashoda took a rod
And hushed the peccant lips of him who was a laughing God.

The latter, 'Ghanashyam ', is in the form of the poet's prayer to the divine deity who gifts his glory, healing breath, joy, mercy to the elements of nature and transcendental calm to sages and mystics:

Let me be lost, a lamp of adoration,
In thine unfathomed waves of ecstasy.

(The Feather of the Dawn, p. 39)

"Songs of Radha" contain three poems 'At Dawn ', "At Dusk' and 'The Quest'. "At Dawn' pictures the yearning of Radha for Ghanashyam at dawn after she has kept a vigil for him at night. 'At Dusk' depicts the eagerness of Radha to adorn and prepare herself to receive Krishna Murari in the night. 'The Quest' describes Radha's search for her lover Kanhaya at dawn, at dusk, and at moonrise in the forest, glade and woods. On meeting her, Krishna chides her:

Thou saidst O Faithless one, self-slain with doubt,
Why seekest thou my loveliness without

And askest wind or wave, or flowering dell
The secret that within thyself doth dewell?

I am of thee, as thou of me, a part
Look for me in the mirror of thy heart.

(The Feather of the Dawn, pp. 42-3)

"Hymn to Indra, Lord of Rain" is the prayer of Indian peasantsmen and women to the God of Rain to favour them by his bounty for their very existence depends on his mercy:

O Thou, who rousest the voice of the thunder,
And biddest the storms to awake from their sleep,

Thou who art mighty to succour and cherish,
Who savest from sorrow and shieldest from pain,
Withhold not thy merciful love, or we perish,
Hearken, O Lord of Rain!

(p. 116)

In "Lakshmi, The Lotus-Born", Indians invoke the Goddess of fortune to shower her gifts on their country:

For our dear land do we offer oblation,
O keep thou her glory unsullied, unshorn
And guard the invincible hope of our nation,
Hearken, O Lotus-born!

(p. 150)

In "Kali The Mother", the eternal Mother of Hindu worship is referred by its various mythical names "Uma Haimavati ', "Ambika ', "Parvati ', "Girija ', 'Shambhavi ', "Kali ', and "Maheshwari'. Her worshippers make their offerings to her and seek her blessings:

O Terrible and tender and divine
O mystic mother of all sacrifice,
We deck the sombre altars of thy shrine
With sacred basil leaves and saffron rice;
All gifts of life and death we bring to thee,
Uma Himavati!

(p. 177)

Sarojini Naidu's songs of Hindu festivals not only project the spirit and occasion of these festivals, but also reveal the faith and enthusiasm of those who celebrate them. The Vasant Panchami is the spring festival when Hindu girls and married women carry gifts of lighted lamps and new-grown corn as offerings to the goddess of the spring and set them afloat on the face of the waters. Hinduwidows are denied the pleasure to take part in any festive ceremonials, for they are treated as unfortunate ones and have to lead the life of sorrow and austerity. The poem, "Vasant Panchami", describes the lament of a Hindu widow at the festival of spring:

O joyous girls who rise at break of morn
With sandal soil your thresholds to adorn,

Ye brides who streamward bear on jewelled feet
Your gifts of silver lamps and new-blown wheat,

I pray you dim your voices when you sing
Your radiant salutations to the spring.

(pp. 90-91)

On the festival of serpents, "Nag Panchami", celebrated three days before the festival of the birth of Lord Krishna, Hindu women offer milk, maize, wild figs and golden honey to serpents and pray to them to protect their lives from dangers:

Guard our helpless lives and guide our patient labours,
And cherish our dear vision like the jewels in your crests;

("The Festival of Serpents", p. 110)

Sarojini Naidu gives a vivid account of the festival of the sea, i.e. "Narieli Purnima" or Coconut Day which is celebrated by the people of the Western India, who live by sea and prosper by it. On this day, which marks the end of the monsoon and beginning of the fishing season, fishermen, traders, pilgrims and their women folk all pay homage to the sea the repository of treasure for their prosperity and safety by offering the auspicious coconuts to it. Women of sea-faring folk pray to the ocean by chanting:

We worship thee with chaplets of devotion,

Cherish our dear desire,
And guard the lives we yield thee, sacred ocean,
Lower and son and sire.

("The Festival of the Sea", The Feather of the Dawn, p. 8)

'Raksha Bandhan' is one of the most popular and colourful festivals of the Hindus in North India. On this day following an ancient Rajput custom, Hindu women tie bracelets of gold-twined silk on the wrists of their brothers. The silken thread is a symbol both of the deep love of sisters for their brothers and of the pledge of brothers to protect their sisters:

A garland how frail of design,
Our spirits to clasp and entwine
In devotion unstained and unbroken,
How slender a circle and sign
Of secret deep pledges unspoken

("Raksha Bandhan", The Feather of the Dawn, p. 10)

VIII

Sarojini Naidu has revealed through her poems emotional and mental make-up of Indian men and women, their particular regional traits, their fancies and changing moods, their reactions to happiness and frustration in personal love and marital relations, their attitude to children and their agelong customs. Some of their instincts and qualities are of universal nature for being human beings they resemble men and women of all ages and countries. But in certain respects they are different from others owing to their peculiar habits and traditions. Muslim tribes of North West Frontier prize nothing more than a maiden to love and a battle to fight:

Wolves of the mountains
Hawks of the hills,
We live or perish
As Allah wills.

Two gifts for our portion
We ask thee, O Fate,
A maiden to cherish,
A kinsman to hate.

Children of danger,
Comrades of death,
The wild scene of battle
Is breath of our breath.

("A Song of the Khyber Pass" The Feather of the Dawn, p. 12)

The Indian gipsy girl though poor, loves free and daring life:

In tattered robes that hoard a glittering trace
Of by gone colours, broidered to the knee,
Behold her, daughter of a wandering race,
Tameless, with the bold falcon's agile grace,
And the little tiger's sinuous majesty.

("The Indian Gipsy", p. 50)

While a city woman anoints her fingers and feet with the paste of henna leaves:

The tilka's red for the brow of a bride,
And betel-nut's red for lips that are sweet,
But, for lily-like fingers and feet,
The red, the red of henna tree.

("In Praise of Henna", p. 13)

and hide herself in a veil:

From thieving light of eyes impure,
From coveting sun or wind's caress,
Her days are guarded and secure
Behind her carven laltices,
Like jewels in a turbaned crest,
Like secrets in a lover's breast.

("The Pardah Nashin", p. 53)

A Rajput wife yearns for her warrior husband gone to the battle field,

Haste, O wild-bee hours, to the gardens of the sunset!
Fly, wild-parrot day, to the orchards of the west!
Come, O tender night, with your sweet, consoling darkness,
And bring me my beloved to the shelter of my breast!

("A Rajput Love Song", p. 80)

and a Muslim one feels happy or sad according to the changing moods of her lover:

O Love I know not why, when you are glad
Gaily my glad heart leaps.
O love I know not why, when you are sad,
Wildly my sad heart weeps.

("A Persian Long Song", p. 82)

or plays on the lute eagerly waiting for her husband to return ("A Persian Lute Song" in F.D.).

An Indian woman surrenders her all for the love of her husband:

O love of all the riches that are mine
What gifts have I withheld before thy shrine?

("To Love", p. 83)

and when forsaken by her lover feels the panges of void in her heart:

I hear the black koel's slow, tremulous wooing,
And sweet in the gardens the calling and cooing
Of passionate bulbul and dove. . . .
But what is their music to me, papeeha
Songs of their laughter and love, papeeha,
To me, forsaken of love?

("A Love Song from the North", pp. 75-76)

The death of her husband deprives her of all pleasures of life:

Shatter her shining bracelets, break the string

Threading the mystic marriage-breads that cling
Loth the desert a sobbing throat so sweat,
Unbind the golden anklets on her feet,
Divest her of her azure veils and cloud
Her living beauty in a living shroud.

("Dirge", p. 66)

or drives her to death with her husband:

Life of my life, Death's bitter sword
Hath severed us like a broken word,
Rent us in twain who are but one.. ..
Shall the flesh survive when the soul is gone?

("Suttee", p. 18)

The folk songs of Sarojini Naidu open before us the vistas of variegated and bizaree life in India and enchant us by their lilting, rhythmic music. These songs project feelings, aspirations and wishes of the wide range of Indian people coming from the lower strata of life, The poet has cast them in different metres and verse forms, which bring out their spirit most effectively. "Village Songs" and "Harvest Hymn" describe the concerns and joys of rural people. A village maiden, who goes to the river Jamuna to fill her pitchers, feels worried as she gets late to return to her house:

Full are my pitchers and far to carry,
Lone is the way and long,
Why, O why was I tempted to tarry
Lured by the boatmen's song?

If in the darkness a serpent should bite me,
Or if an evil spirit should smite me,
R_m re R_m I shall die.

("Village Songs", p. 103)

"Harvest Hymn" is the song of farmers who rejoice at the sight of their ripe corn and express their gratitude to the gods 'Surya ', "Varuna ', "Prithvi ', "Brahma' who bless their fields with rich bounty:

Lord of the rainbow, lord of the harvest,
Great and beneficent lord of the main!
Thine is the mercy that cherished our furrows,
Thine is the mercy that fostered our grain.

(p. 14)

The song "Indian Weavers" (p. 5) succinctly summarizes human life as it passes through the stages of birth, marriage and death. The time of the day when weavers weave dresses suitable to these occasions robes of a new born child "at break of day", the wedding dress for a queen "at the fall of night" and shroud for dead man "in the chill of moonlight" is in harmony with the mood of the occasion. Imagery and rhythm used in "Coromandel Fishers" are appropriate to the sentiments of enthusiasm and robust spirits of the fishermen who go deep in the sea "to capture the leaping wealth of the tide":

No longer delay, let us hasten away in the track
of the sea-gull's call,
The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother,
the waves are our comrades all.
What though we toes 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.

(p. 6)

The colourful scenes pictured in the poems, "Palanquin-Bearers", "Wandering Singers", "The Snake Charmer", "Indian Dancers", "Bangle-Sellers", and "Wandering Beggars", are the common sights in the towns of India. Sarojini Naidu has tried to galvanize into life with the use of apposite diction, power of words, and picturesque imagery the sentiments, rhythmic movements, and the flush and the fire of these folk singers and dances. Slow, careful and tender are the swaying and heaving of palanquin-bearers as they carry a beautiful maiden in their palanquin:

Softly, O softly we bear her along,
She hangs like a star in the dew of her song;
She springs like a beam on the brow of the tide,
She falls like a tear from the eyes of a bride
Lightly, O lightly we glide and we sing,
We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

("Palanquin-Bearers", p. 3)

Cosmopolitan by temperament wandering singers roam about singing and playing on their flute:

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 our kindred, the world is our home.

("Wandering Singers", p. 4)

"The Snake-Charmer" is characterized by picturesque imagery and keenness of desire of the snake-charmer who woos snakes by the magic of his flute-call in fragrant bushes and flower-beds:

Come, thou subtle bride of my mellifluous wooing,
Come, thou silver-breasted moonbeam of desire.

(p. 8)

With the help of onomatopoeic effects and rich use of alliterative diction, Sarojini portrays vividly the rhythm and felicity of accomplished Kathak dancers:

Now silent, now singing and swaying and swinging, like blossoms that bend to the breezes or showers,
Now wantonly winding, they flash, now they falter, and, lingering, languish in radiant choir;
Their jewel-girt arms and warm, wavering lily-long fingers enchant through melodious hours,
Eyes ravished with rapture, celestially panting, what passionate bosoms aflaming with fire!

("Indian Dancers", pp. 37-40)

The rich feast of charming colours is displayed in the song of bangle-sellers roaming about in streets of a town:

Bangle-sellers are we who bear
Our shining loads to the temple fair. . . .
Who will buy these delicate, bright
Rainbow-tinted circles of light?
Lustrous tokens of radiant lives,
For happy daughters and happy wives.

("Bangle-Sellers", p. 108)

VIII

Sarojini Naidu has captured colourful life of towns in several of her poems. Even the pictures of natural landscape, Indian flora and fauna, projected by her in her poems, are such as she has come across in the towns, particularly in her native town Hyderabad to which she was deeply attached. The picturesque scenes of Hyderabad figure prominently in her poems like "Nightfall in the City of Hyderabad", "Street Cries", "Songs of My City", "In a Latticed Balcony" and "In the Bazars of Hyderabad". How vividly and beautifully she images the verious sights of Hyderabad at nightfall:

Hark, from the minaret how the muezzin's call
Floats like a battle-flag over the city wall.

From trellised balconies, languid and luminous
Faces gleam, veiled in a splendour voluminous.

Leisurely elephants wind through the winding lanes,
Swinging their silver bells hung from their silver chains.

Round the high Char Minar sounds of gay cavalcades
Blend with the music of cymbals and serenades.

Over the city bridge Night comes majestical,
Borne like a queen to a sumptuous festival.

("Night fall in the City of Hyderabad", pp. 55-6)

In the poem "Street Cries", Sarojini describes how hawkers cry to sell their "breads' in the morning,

When dawn's first cymbals beat upon the sky,
Rousing the world to labour's various cry.

their "fruits' in the noon,

When the earth falters and the waters swoon
with the implacable radiance of noon;

and their "flowers' at the nightfall,

When twilight twinkling o'er the gay bazars,
Unfurls a sudden canopy of stars,

"In the Bazars of Hyderabed" written to a tune of the Bazars, are given the pictorial scenes of merchants, vendors, pedlars, goldsmiths, fruitmen and flower-girls selling their articles, musicians playing on their instruments and magicians diverting crowds by their magic games and tricks:

What do you sell, O ye merchants?
Richly your wares are displayed.
Turbans of crimson and silver,
Tunics of purple brocade,
Mirrors with panels of amber,
Daggers with handles of jade.

(p. 106)

The scene of Juhu in Bombay figures in the poem "On Juhu Sands" (The Feather of the Dawn) and the famous Imam Bara of Lucknow, a chapel of lamentation where the Muslims of Shia community celebrate Moharram, is envisioned in the poem, "The Imam Bara".

Paying a tribute to the imperial city of Delhi which has witnessed the hanging fortunes of a long line of Indian kings and emperors from times immemorial, Sarojini writes:

The changing kings and kingdoms pass away
The gorgeous legends of a by gone day,
But thou dost still immutably remain
Unbroken symbol of proud histories,
Unageing priestess of old mysteries
Before whose shrine the spells of death are vain.

("Imperial Delhi", p. 156)

IX

Some of the best lyrics of Sarojini Naidu are about beautiful and charming aspects of Nature changing moods of day and seasons, the sun, the moon, stars, clouds, birds, flowers, rivers, lakes and seas. They are in the best traditions of English romantic nature poetry and are characterized by Keatsian ecstasy and sensuousness. The season of Spring the time of gaudy, riotous colours, winged glory, and fragrance of eye-catching loveliness is the most favourite of her seasons. She has written several poems "Spring", "A Song in Spring", "The Joy of Spring Time", "Vasant Panchami", "In a Time of Flowers", "Ecstasy", "The Call of Spring", "The Coining of Spring", "The Magic of Spring", "Spring in Kashmir" in praise of its luscious and lustrous beauty. In "Spring in Kashmir" she gives beautiful images of rapturous songs of birds:

Thro' glade and thro' glen her winged feet let us follow,
In the wake of oriole, the sunbird and swallow.

sweet fragrance of colourful flowers:

Lo! how she bends on the emerald grasses,
To scatter sweet iris in dim, purple, masses.

warbling and sparkling mountain streams:

And hearken at noon to the jubilant paean,
The mountain streams chant from gay aeon to aeon.

(The Feather of the Dawn, p. 14)

and shining moon and twinkling stars. Like an epicurean she sings,

If spring grant us but one rich tulip for token,
Shall we fear if on Fortune's blind wheel we are broken.

(The Feather of the Dawn, p. 15)

With the coming of spring the whole nature burgeons with new life, the plants and trees turn green, the blossoming rich-coloured flowers scatter sweet fragrance, and shining birds burst into melodious singing:

Young leaves grow green on the banyan twigs,
And red on the peepal tree,
The honey birds pipe to the budding figs,
And honey blooms call the bee.

Poppies squander their fragile gold
In the silvery aloe-brake,
Coral and ivery lilies unfold
Their delicate lives on the lake.

Kingfishers ruffle the feathery sedge,
And all the vivid air thrills
With butterfly-wings in the wild-rose hedge,
And the luminous blue of the hills.

("Spring", p. 87)

The whole atmosphere is enlivened by music and mirth. Thrilled with joy the beloved tells her lover:

O Love! do you know the spring is here
With the lure of her magic flute?
The old earth breaks into passionate bloom
At the kiss of her fleet, gay foot,
The burgeoning leaves on the almond boughs,
And the leaves on the blue wave's breast
Are crowned with the limpid and delicate light
Of the gems in your turban crest.
The bright pomegranate buds unfold,
The frail wild lilies appear,
Like the blood red jewels you used to fling
O'er the maidens that danced at the feast of spring
To welcome the new-born year.

("In A Time of Flowers", p. 92)

or sings with rapture:

Heart, O my heart! lo, the spring time is waking
In meadow and grove
Lo, the mellifluous koels are making
Their paens of love.
Behold the bright rivers and rills in their glancing,
Melodious flight,
Behold how the sumptuous peacock are dancing,
In rhythmic delight.

("Ecstasy", p. 99)

As the spring wakes anew, the poet calls her children to come out and play with her:

I know where the dragon-flies glimmer and glide,
And the plumes of wild peacocks are gleaming,
Where the fox and the squirrel and timid fawn hide
And the hawk and the heron lie dreaming.

The earth is ashine like a humming bird's wing,
And the sky like a kingfisher's feather,
O come, let us go and play with the spring,
Like glad-hearted children together.

("The Call of Spring", pp. 185-86)

As the poet grows old she like Wordsworth is unable to respond to the beauty of nature "apparelled in celestial light",³⁵ with the same enthusiasm as she did in her young age:

O Spring I cannot run to greet
Your coming as I did of old,
Clad in shining veil of gold,
With champa-buds and blowing wheat
And silver anklets on my feet.

("The Coming of Spring", p. 187)

The blossoming flowers and chirping birds remind her only faintly that the spring has come:

The kimshuks burst into dazzling flower,
The seemuls burgeoned in crimson pride,
The palm-groves shone with the oriole's wing,
The koels began to sing,
The soft clouds broke in a twinkling tide .. .
My heart leapt up in its grave and cried,
Is it the spring, the spring?

("The Magic of Spring", p. 189)

Indian summer is the season of "low-voiced silences and gleaming solitudes". In this season one likes to rest under the shade of trees or walk in the evening along the river bank or cool oneself by bathing in pools:

O let us fling all care away, and lie alone and dream
'Neath tangled boughs of tamarind, molsari and neem
And bind our brows with jasmine sprays and play on carven flutes,
To wake the slumbering serpent kings among the banyan roots,
And roam at fall of eventide along the river's brink,
And bathe in water-lily pools where golden panthers drink!

("Summer Woods", pp. 190-91)

In rainy season, the "necromantic rain" with its "crystal rods" touches dead loveliness to life again and "revives on withered meads and barren rocks" (F. D., p. 1). During this season the lovelorn maiden pines for her lover as she listens to the cry of papeeha:

I see the soft wings of the clouds on the river,
And jewelled with rain drops the mango-leaves quiver,
And tender boughs flower on the plain . . .
But what is their beauty to me, papeeha,
Beauty of blossom and shower, papeeha,
That brings not my lover again.

("A Love Song for the North", p. 75)

very impressive is Sarojini's pictorial description of the sunset in the autumn season, with clouds hanging, fallen leaves fluttering and wild wind blowing:

Like a joy on the heart of a sorrow,

The sunset hangs on a cloud;
A golden storm of glittering sheaves,
Of fair and frail and fluttering leaves,
The wild wind blows in a cloud.

("Autumn Song", p. 23)

Wistful music, queer movements and gleaming light create an aerie effect of the sunset in summer season:

An ox-cart stumbles upon the rocks,
And a wistful music pursues the breeze,
From a shepherd's pipe as he gathers his flocks
Under the peepal trees.
And a young Banjara driving her cattle
Lifts up her voice as she glitters by
In an ancient ballad of love and battle
Set to the best of a mystic tune,
And the faint stars gleam in the eastern sky
To herald a rising moon.

Apposite visual images make the description of a tropical night in "Leili" very satisfying:

The serpents are asleep among the poppies,
The fireflies light the soundless panther's way
To tangled paths where shy gazelles are straying,
And parrot-plumes outshine the dying day.
O soft! the lotus-buds upon the stream
Are stirring like sweet maidens when they dream.

The silent solemness of night is conveyed impressively by religious imagery used in the second stanza:

A cast-mark on the azure brows of Heaven
The golden moon burns sacred, solemn, bright.
The winds are dancing in the forest-temple,
And swooning at the holy feet of Night,
Hush! in the silence mystic voices sing
And make the gods their incense offering.

(p. 31)

The inter-communion between nature and man is conveyed by linking nature images with feelings of human heart in "Medley", a Kashmiri song:

The poppy grows on the roof-top
The iris flowers on the grave;
Hope in the heart of a lover,
And fear in the heart of a slave
The opul lies in the river,
The pearl in the ocean's breast,
Doubt in a grieving bosom,
And faith in a heart at rest.

(p. 138)

The variety of emotions that goad the bird in the poem "The Bird of Time" to burst in spontaneous music make it a typical Indian bird and the poem about it more convincing than Robert Bridges' "Nightingales":

O Bird of Time, say where did you learn
The changing measures you sing? . . .
In blowing forests and breaking tides,
In the happy laughter of new-made brides,
And the nests of the new-born spring,
In the dawn that thrills to a mother's prayer,
And the night that shelters a heart's despair,
In the sigh of pity, the sob of hate,
And the pride of a soul that has conquered fate.

The beautiful visual and aural images woven round Indian birds "bulbul ', "oriole ', "honey bird ', 'sh_ma ', "hoopoe ', "kingfisher ', gray pigeons ', "jade-green gipsy parrots' give an impressive description of their colourful features and sweet songs:

In your quiet garden wakes a magic tumult
Of winged choristers that keep the Festival of dawn,
Blithely rise the carols in richly cadenced rapture,
From lyric throats of amber, of ebony and fawn.

("The Bird Sanctuary", The Feather of the Dawn, p. 19)

Sarojini Naidu's overwhelming predilection for sensuousness is in evidence in her poems about Indian flowers 'silver jasmine ', "golden champak ', "bakul ', "gloriosa lily ', "water hyacinth ', "golden cassia ', "gulmohur ', "nasturtimus ', "lotus ', "red roses ', "poppy bole ', "ashoka blossom ', and fragrant cinammon, sandal and clove. All of her poems of Indian flowers "The Gloriosa Lily", "The Water Hyacinth", "In Praise of Gulmohur Blossoms", "Nasturtimus", "Golden Cassia", "Champak Blossoms", "The Lotus", "The Garden Vigil", "Ashoka Blossom" provide a rich, sensuous feast of colours and scents. Amazed by the beauty of lily flower the poet exclaims:

Who lit your clustering lanterns, all
All in firnged fire to make
Rosered and amber carnival
In woodland bower and brake,
And lure the purple moth to search
Her rich wings at your blossoming torch.

("The Gloriosa Lily" The Feather of the Dawn, p. 16)

Describing water hyacinth, she writes:

Magical, mist purple, pale,
In alluring splendour spread,
Snaring pool and riverhead
In your perilous and frail
Farflung, subtly painted veil.

("The Water Hyacinth", The Feather of the Dawn, p. 17)

Gulmohur blossoms appear unexcelled to her in their lovely hues:

What can rival your lovely hue
O gorgeous boon of the spring?
The glimmering red of a bridal robe,
Rich red of wild bird's wing?
Or the mystic blaze of the gem that burns
On the brow of a serpent king?

("The Praise of Gulmohur Blossoms" The Feather of the Dawn, p. 94)

There is a remarkable novelty in Sarojini's description of the beauty of nasturtiums by the use of mythopoetic images of immortal heroines of Indian myths:

Your leaves interwoven of fragrance and fire
Are Savitri's sorrow and Sita's desire,
Draupadi's longing, Damayanti's fears,
And sweetest Sakuntala's magical tears.

("Nasturtiums", p. 95)

Beautiful cassia flowers appear to her creations of a fairy land and not of earth:

But, I sometimes think that perchance you are
Fragments of some new-fallen star,
Or golden lamps for a fairy shrine,
Or golden pitchers for fairy wine.

("Golden Cassia", p. 96)

Champak blossoms flood the poet's senses by their "ambrosial sweetness' and "voluptuous' perfume:

Yet, 'tis of you thro' the moolit ages
That maidens and minstrels sing,
And lay your buds on the great god's altair,
O radiant blossoms that fling
Your rich, voluptuous, magical perfume,
To ravish the winds of spring.

("Champak Blossoms", pp. 97-8)

Praising the mystic beauty of lotus flower, she writes:

O mystic lotus, sacred and sublime,
In myriad-petalled grace inviolate,
Supreme O'er transient storms of tragic fate,
Deep-rooted in the waters of all time.

("The Lotus", p. 167)

Relying upon the transforming power of Ashoka leaves, described in legends, the poet wishes:

If your glowing foot be prest
O'er the secrets of my breast,
Love, my dreaming heart would wake,
And its joyous fancies break
Into lyric bloom
To enchant the passing world
With melodious leaves unfuri'd
And their wild perfume.

("Ashoka Blossom", p. 202)

X

Sarojini Naidu's poetry is overtly Indian in spirit. No other Indian English poet has unfolded Indian milieu and ethos in such wide variety and with such ardent passion as Sarojini Naidu has done. From the very beginning of her poetic career she has been admired for the lyrical intensity and the vivid treatment of Indian ethos in her poems. In the Introduction of The Bird of Time, Edmund Gosse described her as "The most brilliant, the most original, as well as the most correct, of all the natives of Hindustan who have written in English".³⁶ The very first of her anthologies, The Golden Threshold, was welcomed with highly laudatory comments by English reviewers. The Times wrote: "Her poetry seems to sing itself as if her swift thoughts and strong emotions sprang into lyrics of themselves", and the Glasgow Herald commented: "Delicacy and subtlety of expression are all at her command. . . . Her thought's crowning delight is to find radiant utterance . . . The pictures are of the East it is true? But there is something fundamentally human in them that seems to prove that the best song knows nothing of East or West." Manchester Guardian described her lyrics as "genuine poetry" and remarked: "It is always musical, its Eastern colour is fresh, and its firm touch is quick and delicate".

The changing vagaries of critical canons cannot obliterate the enduring charm of such imaginative creative power, metrical virtuosity and authentic emotional intensity as found in Sarojini's poetry. Sri Aurobindo has truly remarked: "Her work has a real beauty. Some of her lyrical work is likely, I think, to survive among the lasting things in English literature and by these, even if they are fine rather than great, she may take her rank among the immortals".³⁷

NOTES

¹ Matthew Arnold's sonnet, "Shakespeare".

² Sisir Kumar Ghose, "Sarojini Naidu: Towards Revaluation", Osmania Journal of English Studies, Sarojini Naidu Special Number, p. 28.

³Ibid.

⁴Ibid.

⁵Ibid., p. 33.

⁶Ibid., p. 28.

⁷ R. Parthasarathy, "Introduction", Ten Twentieth Century Indian Poets (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 3.

⁸ Arthur Symons, "Introduction", The Golden Threshold (London: William Heinemann, 1916), p. 10.

⁹ R. Parthasarathy, "Indian English Verse: The Making of a Tradition", Avadhesh K. Srivastava, ed. Alien Voice (Lucknow: Print-House, 1981), p. 41.

¹⁰Ten Twentieth Century Indian Poets, p. 2.

¹¹Ibid., p. 1.

¹²Alien Voice, p. 41.

¹³Ibid.

¹⁴The Times of India (Sunday: July 23, 1972), p. 9.

¹⁵ Quoted by S. C. Harrex, "Small-Scale Reflections on Indian English-Language Poetry", The Journal of Indian Writing in English, Vol. 8 (January-July, 1980), p. 145.

¹⁶ Adil Jussawalla, "The New Poetry", The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, No. 5 (July, 1968), p. 65.

¹⁷Alien Voice, p. 40.

¹⁸ F. R. Leavis, Lectures in America (London, 1969), p. 33.

¹⁹ Shankar Mokashi Punekar, "A Note on Sarojini Naidu", M. K. Naik et al ed. Critical Essays on Indian Writers in English (Delhi: The Macmillan Co. of India Ltd., 1977), p. 70.

²⁰ D. B. Dhanapala, Eminent Indians (Bombay, 1947), p. 58.

²¹ Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, "Introduction", Sarojini Naidu: The Poet of Nation, R. Bhatnagar ed. (Allahabad, n.d.), p. x.

²² Arthur Symons, "Introduction", Sarojini Naidu, The Golden Threshold (London: William Heinemann, 1916), p. 15.

²³ibid.

²⁴ Quoted by K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Indian Writing in English (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1985), p. 207.

²⁵ "Sonnet Addressed to Haydon", Keats' Poetical Works (London: Collins Clear-Type Press, 1923), p. 51.

²⁶ Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book XI. pp. 108-109.

²⁷ P. V. Rajyalakshmi, The Lyric Spring: A Song of the Poetry of Sarojini Naidu (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1977), p. 25.

²⁸ Iyengar, p. 211.

²⁹ Edmund Gosse, "Introduction", Sarojini Naidu, The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death and Spring (London: William Heinemann, 1917), p. 6.

³⁰Ibid., pp. 4-5.

³¹Ibid., p. 5.

³² Iyengar, p. 213.

³³ "The Broken Wing", The Sceptred Flute: Songs of India (Allahabad: Kitabistan, 1979), p. 145. Most of the extracts-quoted from Sarojini Naidu's poems are from this anthology of her poems till otherwise mentioned.

³⁴ Sarojini Naidu, "Renunciation", The Feather of the Dawn (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1961).

³⁵ Wordsworth, "Ode on Intimations of Immortality".

³⁶ Gosse, p. 2.

³⁷ Iyengar, quoted in "Sarojini Naidu", pp. 222-23.