The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Golden Threshold, by Sarojini Naidu

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THE GOLDEN THRESHOLD

BY

SAROJINI NAIDU

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ARTHUR SYMONS

DEDICATED TO EDMUND GOSSE WHO FIRST SHOWED ME THE WAY TO THEGOLDEN THRESHOLD

London,best musical plush toys for easter basket 1896 Hyderabad, 1905

CONTENTS

FOLK SONGS

  Palanquin-Bearers
  Wandering Singers
  Indian Weavers
  Coromandel Fishers
  The Snake-Charmer
  Corn-Grinders
  Village-Song
  In Praise of Henna
  Harvest Hymn
  Indian Love-Song
  Cradle-Song
  Suttee

SONGS FOR MUSIC

  Song of a Dream
  Humayun to Zobeida
  Autumn Song Alabaster
  Ecstasy
  To my Fairy Fancies

POEMS

  Ode to H. H. the Nizam of Hyderabad
  In the Forest
  Past and Future Life
  The Poet's Love-Song
  To the God of Pain
  The Song of Princess Zeb-un-nissa
  Indian Dancers
  My Dead Dream
  Damayante to Nala in the Hour of Exile
  The Queen's Rival
  The Poet to Death
  The Indian Gipsy
  To my Children
  The Pardah Nashin
  To Youth
  Nightfall in the City of Hyderabad
  Street Cries
  To India
  The Royal Tombs of Golconda
  To a Buddha seated on a Lotus

INTRODUCTION

It is at my persuasion that these poems are now published. Theearliest of them were read to me in London in 1896, when thewriter was seventeen; the later ones were sent to me from Indiain 1904, when she was twenty-five; and they belong, I think,almost wholly to those two periods. As they seemed to me to havean individual beauty of their own, I thought they ought to bepublished. The writer hesitated. "Your letter made me veryproud and very sad," she wrote. "Is it possible that I havewritten verses that are 'filled with beauty,' and is it possiblethat you really think them worthy of being given to the world?You know how high my ideal of Art is; and to me my poor casuallittle poems seem to be less than beautiful—I mean with thatfinal enduring beauty that I desire." And, in another letter,she writes: "I am not a poet really. I have the vision and thedesire, but not the voice. If I could write just one poem fullof beauty and the spirit of greatness, I should be exultantlysilent for ever; but I sing just as the birds do, and my songsare as ephemeral." It is for this bird-like quality of song, itseems to me, that they are to be valued. They hint, in a sort ofdelicately evasive way, at a rare temperament, the temperament ofa woman of the East, finding expression through a Westernlanguage and under partly Western influences. They do notexpress the whole of that temperament; but they express, I think,its essence; and there is an Eastern magic in them.

Sarojini Chattopadhyay was born at Hyderabad on February 13,1879. Her father, Dr. Aghorenath Chattopadhyay, is descendedfrom the ancient family of Chattorajes of Bhramangram, who werenoted throughout Eastern Bengal as patrons of Sanskrit learning,and for their practice of Yoga. He took his degree of Doctor ofScience at the University of Edinburgh in 1877, and afterwardsstudied brilliantly at Bonn. On his return to India he foundedthe Nizam College at Hyderabad, and has since laboured incessantly,and at great personal sacrifice, in the cause of education.

Sarojini was the eldest of a large family, all of whom weretaught English at an early age. "I," she writes, "was stubbornand refused to speak it. So one day when I was nine years old myfather punished me—the only time I was ever punished—byshutting me in a room alone for a whole day. I came out of it afull-blown linguist. I have never spoken any other language tohim, or to my mother, who always speaks to me in Hindustani. Idon't think I had any special hankering to write poetry as alittle child, though I was of a very fanciful and dreamy nature.My training under my father's eye was of a sternly scientificcharacter. He was determined that I should be a great mathematicianor a scientist, but the poetic instinct, which I inherited from himand also from my mother (who wrote some lovely Bengali lyrics in heryouth) proved stronger. One day, when I was eleven, I was sighingover a sum in algebra: it WOULDN'T come right; but instead a wholepoem came to me suddenly. I wrote it down.

"From that day my 'poetic career' began. At thirteen I wrote along poem a la 'Lady of the Lake'—1300 lines in six days. Atthirteen I wrote a drama of 2000 lines, a full-fledged passionatething that I began on the spur of the moment without forethought,just to spite my doctor who said I was very ill and must nottouch a book. My health broke down permanently about this time,and my regular studies being stopped I read voraciously. Isuppose the greater part of my reading was done between fourteenand sixteen. I wrote a novel, I wrote fat volumes of journals; Itook myself very seriously in those days."

Before she was fifteen the great struggle of her life began. Dr.Govindurajulu Naidu, now her husband, is, though of an old andhonourable family, not a Brahmin. The difference of caste rousedan equal opposition, not only on the side of her family, but ofhis; and in 1895 she was sent to England, against her will, witha special scholarship from the Nizam. She remained in England,with an interval of travel in Italy, till 1898, studying first atKing's College, London, then, till her health again broke down,at Girton. She returned to Hyderabad in September 1898, and inthe December of that year, to the scandal of all India, brokethrough the bonds of caste, and married Dr. Naidu. "Do you knowI have some very beautiful poems floating in the air," she wroteto me in 1904; "and if the gods are kind I shall cast my soullike a net and capture them, this year. If the gods arekind—and grant me a little measure of health. It is all I needto make my life perfect, for the very 'Spirit of Delight' thatShelley wrote of dwells in my little home; it is full of themusic of birds in the garden and children in the long archedverandah." There are songs about the children in this book; theyare called the Lord of Battles, the Sun of Victory, theLotus-born, and the Jewel of Delight.

"My ancestors for thousands of years," I find written in one ofher letters, "have been lovers of the forest and mountain caves,great dreamers, great scholars, great ascetics. My father is adreamer himself, a great dreamer, a great man whose life has beena magnificent failure. I suppose in the whole of India there arefew men whose learning is greater than his, and I don't thinkthere are many men more beloved. He has a great white beard andthe profile of Homer, and a laugh that brings the roof down. Hehas wasted all his money on two great objects: to help others,and on alchemy. He holds huge courts every day in his garden ofall the learned men of all religions—Rajahs and beggars andsaints and downright villains all delightfully mixed up, and alltreated as one. And then his alchemy! Oh dear, night and daythe experiments are going on, and every man who brings a newprescription is welcome as a brother. But this alchemy is, youknow, only the material counterpart of a poet's craving forBeauty, the eternal Beauty. 'The makers of gold and the makersof verse,' they are the twin creators that sway the world'ssecret desire for mystery; and what in my father is the genius ofcuriosity—the very essence of all scientific genius—in me isthe desire for beauty. Do you remember Pater's phrase aboutLeonardo da Vinci, 'curiosity and the desire of beauty'?"

It was the desire of beauty that made her a poet; her "nerves ofdelight" were always quivering at the contact of beauty. Tothose who knew her in England, all the life of the tiny figureseemed to concentrate itself in the eyes; they turned towardsbeauty as the sunflower turns towards the sun, opening wider andwider until one saw nothing but the eyes.

She was dressed always in clinging dresses of Eastern silk, andas she was so small, and her long black hair hung straight downher back, you might have taken her for a child. She spokelittle, and in a low voice, like gentle music; and she seemed,wherever she was, to be alone.

Through that soul I seemed to touch and take hold upon the East.And first there was the wisdom of the East. I have never knownany one who seemed to exist on such "large draughts of intellectualday" as this child of seventeen, to whom one could tell all one'spersonal troubles and agitations, as to a wise old woman. In theEast, maturity comes early; and this child had already lived throughall a woman's life. But there was something else, something hardlypersonal, something which belonged to a consciousness older than theChristian, which I realised, wondered at, and admired, in her passionatetranquillity of mind, before which everything mean and trivial andtemporary caught fire and burnt away in smoke. Her body was neverwithout suffering, or her heart without conflict; but neither thebody's weakness nor the heart's violence could disturb that fixedcontemplation, as of Buddha on his lotus-throne.

And along with this wisdom, as of age or of the age of a race,there was what I can hardly call less than an agony of sensation.Pain or pleasure transported her, and the whole of pain orpleasure might be held in a flower's cup or the imagined frown ofa friend. It was never found in those things which to othersseemed things of importance. At the age of twelve she passed theMatriculation of the Madras University, and awoke to find herselffamous throughout India. "Honestly," she said to me, "I was notpleased; such things did not appeal to me." But here, in aletter from Hyderabad, bidding one "share a March morning" withher, there is, at the mere contact of the sun, this outburst:"Come and share my exquisite March morning with me: thissumptuous blaze of gold and sapphire sky; these scarlet liliesthat adorn the sunshine; the voluptuous scents of neem andchampak and serisha that beat upon the languid air with theirimplacable sweetness; the thousand little gold and blue andsilver breasted birds bursting with the shrill ecstasy of life innesting time. All is hot and fierce and passionate, ardent andunashamed in its exulting and importunate desire for life andlove. And, do you know that the scarlet lilies are woven petal bypetal from my heart's blood, these little quivering birds are mysoul made incarnate music, these heavy perfumes are my emotionsdissolved into aerial essence, this flaming blue and gold sky isthe 'very me,' that part of me that incessantly and insolently,yes, and a little deliberately, triumphs over that other part—athing of nerves and tissues that suffers and cries out, and thatmust die to-morrow perhaps, or twenty years hence."

Then there was her humour, which was part of her strange wisdom,and was always awake and on the watch. In all her letters,written in exquisite English prose, but with an ardent imageryand a vehement sincerity of emotion which make them, like thepoems, indeed almost more directly, un-English, Oriental, therewas always this intellectual, critical sense of humour, whichcould laugh at one's own enthusiasm as frankly as that enthusiasmhad been set down. And partly the humour, like the delicatereserve of her manner, was a mask or a shelter. "I have taughtmyself," she writes to me from India, "to be commonplace and likeeverybody else superficially. Every one thinks I am so nice andcheerful, so 'brave,' all the banal things that are so comfortableto be. My mother knows me only as 'such a tranquil child, but sostrong-willed.' A tranquil child!" And she writes again, with deepersignificance: "I too have learnt the subtle philosophy of living frommoment to moment. Yes, it is a subtle philosophy, though it appearsmerely an epicurean doctrine: 'Eat, drink, and be merry, forto-morrow we die.' I have gone through so many yesterdays when Istrove with Death that I have realised to its full the wisdom of thatsentence; and it is to me not merely a figure of speech, but aliteral fact. Any to-morrow I might die. It is scarcely two monthssince I came back from the grave: is it worth while to be anythingbut radiantly glad? Of all things that life or perhaps my temperamenthas given me I prize the gift of laughter as beyond price."

Her desire, always, was to be "a wild free thing of the air likethe birds, with a song in my heart." A spirit of too much firein too frail a body, it was rarely that her desire was fullygranted. But in Italy she found what she could not find inEngland, and from Italy her letters are radiant. "This Italy ismade of gold," she writes from Florence, "the gold of dawn anddaylight, the gold of the stars, and, now dancing in weirdenchanting rhythms through this magic month of May, the gold offireflies in the perfumed darkness—'aerial gold.' I long tocatch the subtle music of their fairy dances and make a poem witha rhythm like the quick irregular wild flash of their suddenmovements. Would it not be wonderful? One black night I stoodin a garden with fireflies in my hair like darting restless starscaught in a mesh of darkness. It gave me a strange sensation, asif I were not human at all, but an elfin spirit. I wonder whythese little things move me so deeply? It is because I have amost 'unbalanced intellect,' I suppose." Then, looking out onFlorence, she cries, "God! how beautiful it is, and how glad I amthat I am alive to-day!" And she tells me that she is drinkingin the beauty like wine, "wine, golden and scented, and shining,fit for the gods; and the gods have drunk it, the dead gods ofEtruria, two thousand years ago. Did I say dead? No, for thegods are immortal, and one might still find them loitering insome solitary dell on the grey hillsides of Fiesole. Have I seenthem? Yes, looking with dreaming eyes, I have found them sittingunder the olives, in their grave, strong, antique beauty—Etruscangods!"

In Italy she watches the faces of the monks, and at one momentlongs to attain to their peace by renunciation, longs for Nirvana;"then, when one comes out again into the hot sunshine that warmsone's blood, and sees the eager hurrying faces of men and womenin the street, dramatic faces over which the disturbing experiencesof life have passed and left their symbols, one's heart thrills upinto one's throat. No, no, no, a thousand times no! how can onedeliberately renounce this coloured, unquiet, fiery human life ofthe earth?" And, all the time, her subtle criticism is alert, andthis woman of the East marvels at the women of the West, "thebeautiful worldly women of the West," whom she sees walking in theCascine, "taking the air so consciously attractive in their brillianttoilettes, in the brilliant coquetry of their manner!" She findsthem "a little incomprehensible," "profound artists in all the subtleintricacies of fascination," and asks if these "incalculablefrivolities and vanities and coquetries and caprices" are, to us,an essential part of their charm? And she watches them withamusement as they flutter about her, petting her as if she were anice child, a child or a toy, not dreaming that she is saying toherself sorrowfully: "How utterly empty their lives must be ofall spiritual beauty IF they are nothing more than they appear to be."

She sat in our midst, and judged us, and few knew what waspassing behind that face "like an awakening soul," to use one ofher own epithets. Her eyes were like deep pools, and you seemedto fall through them into depths below depths.

ARTHUR SYMONS.

FOLK SONGS

PALANQUIN BEARERS

  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.

  Softly, O softly we bear 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.
  Lightly, O lightly we glide and we sing,
  We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

WANDERING SINGERS

(Written to one of their Tunes)

  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.

  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.

  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.

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.

  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.

COROMANDEL FISHERS

  Rise, brothers, rise, the wakening skies pray
       to the morning light,
  The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn
       like a child that has cried all night.
  Come, let us gather our nets from the shore,
       and set our catamarans free,
  To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for
       we are the sons of the sea.

  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 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.

  Sweet is the shade of the cocoanut glade, and
       the scent of the mango grove,
  And sweet are the sands at the full o' the
       moon with the sound of the voices we love.
  But sweeter, O brothers, 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.

THE SNAKE-CHARMER

  Whither dost thou hide from the magic of my flute-call?
  In what moonlight-tangled meshes of perfume,
  Where the clustering keovas guard the squirrel's slumber,
  Where the deep woods glimmer with the jasmine's bloom?

  I'll feed thee, O beloved, on milk and wild red honey,
  I'll bear thee in a basket of rushes, green and white,
  To a palace-bower where golden-vested maidens
  Thread with mellow laughter the petals of delight.

  Whither dost thou loiter, by what murmuring hollows,
  Where oleanders scatter their ambrosial fire?
  Come, thou subtle bride of my mellifluous wooing,
  Come, thou silver-breasted moonbeam of desire!

CORN-GRINDERS

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.

O LITTLE DEER, WHY DOST THOU MOAN, HID IN THY FOREST-BOWER ALONE?

  Alas! alas! my lord is dead!
  Ah! who will quiet my lament?

  At fall of eventide he went
  To drink beside the river-head;
  A waiting hunter threw his dart,
  And struck my lover through the heart.
  Alas! alas! my lord is dead.

O LITTLE BRIDE, WHY DOST THOU WEEP WITH ALL THE HAPPY WORLD ASLEEP?

  Alas! alas! my lord is dead!
  Ah, who will stay these hungry tears,
  Or still the want of famished years,
  And crown with love my marriage-bed?
  My soul burns with the quenchless fire
  That lit my lover's funeral pyre:
  Alas! alas! my lord is dead.

VILLAGE-SONG

  Honey, child, honey, child, whither are you going?
  Would you cast your jewels all to the breezes blowing?
  Would you leave the mother who on golden grain has fed you?
  Would you grieve the lover who is riding forth to wed you?

  Mother mine, to the wild forest I am going,
  Where upon the champa boughs the champa buds are blowing;
  To the koil-haunted river-isles where lotus lilies glisten,
  The voices of the fairy folk are calling me: O listen!

  Honey, child, honey, child, the world is full of pleasure,
  Of bridal-songs and cradle-songs and sandal-scented leisure.
  Your bridal robes are in the loom, silver and saffron glowing,
  Your bridal cakes are on the hearth: O whither are you going?

  The bridal-songs and cradle-songs have cadences of sorrow,
  The laughter of the sun to-day, the wind of death to-morrow.
  Far sweeter sound the forest-notes where forest-streams are falling;
  O mother mine, I cannot stay, the fairy-folk are calling.

IN PRAISE OF HENNA

  A kokila called from a henna-spray:
  LIRA! LIREE! LIRA! LIREE!
  Hasten, maidens, hasten away
  To gather the leaves of the henna-tree.
  Send your pitchers afloat on the tide,
  Gather the leaves ere the dawn be old,
  Grind them in mortars of amber and gold,
  The fresh green leaves of the henna-tree.

  A kokila called from a henna-spray:
  LIRA! LIREE! LIRA! LIREE!
  Hasten maidens, hasten away
  To gather the leaves of the henna-tree.
  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 the henna-tree.

HARVEST HYMN

Men's Voices

  Lord of the lotus, lord of the harvest,
  Bright and munificent lord of the morn!
  Thine is the bounty that prospered our sowing,
  Thine is the bounty that nurtured our corn.
  We bring thee our songs and our garlands for tribute,
  The gold of our fields and the gold of our fruit;
  O giver of mellowing radiance, we hail thee,
  We praise thee, O Surya, with cymbal and flute.

  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.
  We bring thee our thanks and our garlands for tribute,
  The wealth of our valleys, new-garnered and ripe;
  O sender of rain and the dewfall, we hail thee,
  We praise thee, Varuna, with cymbal and pipe.

Women's Voices

  Queen of the gourd-flower, queen of the harvest,
  Sweet and omnipotent mother, O Earth!
  Thine is the plentiful bosom that feeds us,
  Thine is the womb where our riches have birth.
  We bring thee our love and our garlands for tribute,
  With gifts of thy opulent giving we come;
  O source of our manifold gladness, we hail thee,
  We praise thee, O Prithvi, with cymbal and drum.

All Voices

  Lord of the Universe, Lord of our being,
  Father eternal, ineffable Om!
  Thou art the Seed and the Scythe of our harvests,
  Thou art our Hands and our Heart and our Home.
  We bring thee our lives and our labours for tribute,
  Grant us thy succour, thy counsel, thy care.
  O Life of all life and all blessing, we hail thee,
  We praise thee, O Bramha, with cymbal and prayer.

INDIAN LOVE-SONG

She

  Like a serpent to the calling voice of flutes,
  Glides my heart into thy fingers, O my Love!
  Where the night-wind, like a lover, leans above
  His jasmine-gardens and sirisha-bowers;
  And on ripe boughs of many-coloured fruits
  Bright parrots cluster like vermilion flowers.

He

  Like the perfume in the petals of a rose,
  Hides thy heart within my bosom, O my love!
  Like a garland, like a jewel, like a dove
  That hangs its nest in the asoka-tree.
  Lie still, O love, until the morning sows
  Her tents of gold on fields of ivory.

CRADLE-SONG

     From groves of spice,
     O'er fields of rice,
  Athwart the lotus-stream,
     I bring for you,
     Aglint with dew
  A little lovely dream.

     Sweet, shut your eyes,
     The wild fire-flies
  Dance through the fairy neem;
     From the poppy-bole
     For you I stole
  A little lovely dream.

     Dear eyes, good-night,
     In golden light
  The stars around you gleam;
     On you I press
     With soft caress
  A little lovely dream.

SUTTEE

  Lamp of my life, the lips of Death
  Hath blown thee out with their sudden breath;
  Naught shall revive thy vanished spark . . .
  Love, must I dwell in the living dark?

  Tree of my life, Death's cruel foot
  Hath crushed thee down to thy hidden root;
  Nought shall restore thy glory fled . . .
  Shall the blossom live when the tree is dead?

  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?

SONGS FOR MUSIC

SONG OF A DREAM

  Once in the dream of a night I stood
  Lone in the light of a magical wood,
  Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang;
  And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang,
  And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed,
  And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed
  In that magical wood in the land of sleep.

  Lone in the light of that magical grove,
  I felt the stars of the spirits of Love
  Gather and gleam round my delicate youth,
  And I heard the song of the spirits of Truth;
  To quench my longing I bent me low
  By the streams of the spirits of Peace that flow
  In that magical wood in the land of sleep.

HUMAYUN TO ZOBEIDA

(From the Urdu)

  You flaunt your beauty in the rose, your glory in the dawn,
  Your sweetness in the nightingale, your whiteness in the swan.

  You haunt my waking like a dream, my slumber like a moon,
  Pervade me like a musky scent, possess me like a tune.

  Yet, when I crave of you, my sweet, one tender moment's grace,
  You cry, "I SIT BEHIND THE VEIL, I CANNOT SHOW MY FACE."

  Shall any foolish veil divide my longing from my bliss?
  Shall any fragile curtain hide your beauty from my kiss?

  What war is this of THEE and ME? Give o'er the wanton strife,
  You are the heart within my heart, the life within my life.

AUTUMN SONG

  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.

  Hark to a voice that is calling
     To my heart in the voice of the wind:
  My heart is weary and sad and alone,
  For its dreams like the fluttering leaves have gone,
     And why should I stay behind?

ALABASTER

  Like this alabaster box whose art
  Is frail as a cassia-flower, is my heart,
  Carven with delicate dreams and wrought
  With many a subtle and exquisite thought.

  Therein I treasure the spice and scent
  Of rich and passionate memories blent
  Like odours of cinnamon, sandal and clove,
  Of song and sorrow and life and love.

ECSTASY

  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!

TO MY FAIRY FANCIES

  Nay, no longer I may hold you,
     In my spirit's soft caresses,
  Nor like lotus-leaves enfold you
     In the tangles of my tresses.
  Fairy fancies, fly away
     To the white cloud-wildernesses,
           Fly away!

  Nay, no longer ye may linger
     With your laughter-lighted faces,
  Now I am a thought-worn singer
     In life's high and lonely places.
  Fairy fancies, fly away,
     To bright wind-inwoven spaces,
           Fly away!

POEMS

ODE TO H.H. THE NIZAM OF HYDERABAD

(Presented at the Ramzan Durbar)

  Deign, Prince, my tribute to receive,
  This lyric offering to your name,
  Who round your jewelled scepter bind
  The lilies of a poet's fame;
  Beneath whose sway concordant dwell
  The peoples whom your laws embrace,
  In brotherhood of diverse creeds,
  And harmony of diverse race:

  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.

  Sweet, sumptuous fables of Baghdad
  The splendours of your court recall,
  The torches of a Thousand Nights
  Blaze through a single festival;
  And Saki-singers down the streets,
  Pour for us, in a stream divine,
  From goblets of your love-ghazals
  The rapture of your Sufi wine.

  Prince, where your radiant cities smile,
  Grim hills their sombre vigils keep,
  Your ancient forests hoard and hold
  The legends of their centuried sleep;
  Your birds of peace white-pinioned float
  O'er ruined fort and storied plain,
  Your faithful stewards sleepless guard
  The harvests of your gold and grain.

  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 Firdusi sung,
  Your name within a nation's prayer,
  Your music on a nation's tongue.

LEILI

  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.

  A caste-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.

IN THE FOREST

  Here, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead,
  Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre
  Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red,
  Here let us burn them in noon's flaming torches of fire.

  We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne
  The heavy loved burden of dreams that are dead, let us rest,
  Let us scatter their ashes away, for a while let us mourn;
  We will rest, O my heart, till the shadows are gray in the west.

  But soon we must rise, O my heart, we must wander again
  Into the war of the world and the strife of the throng;
  Let us rise, O my heart, let us gather the dreams that remain,
  We will conquer the sorrow of life with the sorrow of song.

PAST AND FUTURE

  THE NEW HATH COME AND NOW THE OLD RETIRES:
  And so the past becomes a mountain-cell,
  Where lone, apart, old hermit-memories dwell
  In consecrated calm, forgotten yet
  Of the keen heart that hastens to forget
  Old longings in fulfilling new desires.

  And now the Soul stands in a vague, intense
  Expectancy and anguish of suspense,
  On the dim chamber-threshold . . . lo! he sees
  Like a strange, fated bride as yet unknown,
  His timid future shrinking there alone,
  Beneath her marriage-veil of mysteries.

LIFE

  Children, ye have not lived, to you it seems
  Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams,
  Or carnival of careless joys that leap
  About your hearts like billows on the deep
  In flames of amber and of amethyst.

  Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist
  Till some resistless hour shall rise and move
  Your hearts to wake and hunger after love,
  And thirst with passionate longing for the things
  That burn your brows with blood-red sufferings.

  Till ye have battled with great grief and fears,
  And borne the conflict of dream-shattering years,
  Wounded with fierce desire and worn with strife,
  Children, ye have not lived: for this is life.

THE POET'S LOVE-SONG

  In noon-tide hours, O Love, secure and strong,
     I need thee not; mad dreams are mine to bind
     The world to my desire, and hold the wind
  A voiceless captive to my conquering song.
     I need thee not, I am content with these:
     Keep silence in thy soul, beyond the seas!

  But in the desolate hour of midnight, when
     An ecstasy of starry silence sleeps
     On the still mountains and the soundless deeps,
  And my soul hungers for thy voice, O then,
     Love, like the magic of wild melodies,
     Let thy soul answer mine across the seas.

TO THE GOD OF PAIN

  Unwilling priestess in thy cruel fane,
  Long hast thou held me, pitiless god of Pain,
  Bound to thy worship by reluctant vows,
  My tired breast girt with suffering, and my brows
  Anointed with perpetual weariness.
  Long have I borne thy service, through the stress
  Of rigorous years, sad days and slumberless nights,
  Performing thine inexorable rites.

  For thy dark altars, balm nor milk nor rice,
  But mine own soul thou'st ta'en for sacrifice:
  All the rich honey of my youth's desire,
  And all the sweet oils from my crushed life drawn,
  And all my flower-like dreams and gem-like fire
  Of hopes up-leaping like the light of dawn.

  I have no more to give, all that was mine
  Is laid, a wrested tribute, at thy shrine;
  Let me depart, for my whole soul is wrung,
  And all my cheerless orisons are sung;
  Let me depart, with faint limbs let me creep
  To some dim shade and sink me down to sleep.

THE SONG OF PRINCESS ZEB-UN-NISSA IN PRAISE OF HER OWN BEAUTY

(From the Persian)

  When from my cheek I lift my veil,
  The roses turn with envy pale,
       And from their pierced hearts, rich with pain,
  Send forth their fragrance like a wail.

  Or if perchance one perfumed tress
  Be lowered to the wind's caress,
       The honeyed hyacinths complain,
  And languish in a sweet distress.

  And, when I pause, still groves among,
  (Such loveliness is mine) a throng
       Of nightingales awake and strain
  Their souls into a quivering song.

INDIAN DANCERS

  Eyes ravished with rapture, celestially panting,
        what passionate bosoms aflaming with fire
  Drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth
        heavens that glimmer around them in
        fountains of light;
  O wild and entrancing the strain of keen music
        that cleaveth the stars like a wail of desire,
  And beautiful dancers with houri-like faces
        bewitch the voluptuous watches of night.

  The scents of red roses and sandalwood flutter
        and die in the maze of their gem-tangled hair,
  And smiles are entwining like magical serpents
        the poppies of lips that are opiate-sweet;
  Their glittering garments of purple are burning
        like tremulous dawns in the quivering air,
  And exquisite, subtle and slow are the tinkle
        and tread of their rhythmical, slumber-soft feet.

  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!

MY DEAD DREAM

  Have you found me, at last, O my Dream?
       Seven aeons ago
  You died and I buried you deep under forests
       of snow.
  Why have you come hither? Who bade you
       awake from your sleep
  And track me beyond the cerulean foam of the
       deep?

  Would you tear from my lintels these sacred
       green garlands of leaves?
  Would you scare the white, nested, wild
       pigeons of joy from my eaves?
  Would you touch and defile with dead fingers
       the robes of my priest?
  Would you weave your dim moan with the
       chantings of love at my feast?

  Go back to your grave, O my Dream, under
       forests of snow,
  Where a heart-riven child hid you once, seven
       aeons ago.
  Who bade you arise from your darkness? I
       bid you depart!
  Profane not the shrines I have raised in the
       clefts of my heart.

DAMAYANTE TO NALA IN THE HOUR OF EXILE

(A fragment)

  Shalt thou be conquered of a human fate
  My liege, my lover, whose imperial head
  Hath never bent in sorrow of defeat?
  Shalt thou be vanquished, whose imperial feet
  Have shattered armies and stamped empires dead?
  Who shall unking thee, husband of a queen?
  Wear thou thy majesty inviolate.
  Earth's glories flee of human eyes unseen,
  Earth's kingdoms fade to a remembered dream,
  But thine henceforth shall be a power supreme,
  Dazzling command and rich dominion,
  The winds thy heralds and thy vassals all
  The silver-belted planets and the sun.
  Where'er the radiance of thy coming fall,
  Shall dawn for thee her saffron footcloths spread,
  Sunset her purple canopies and red,
  In serried splendour, and the night unfold
  Her velvet darkness wrought with starry gold
  For kingly raiment, soft as cygnet-down.
  My hair shall braid thy temples like a crown
  Of sapphires, and my kiss upon thy brows
  Like cithar-music lull thee to repose,
  Till the sun yield thee homage of his light.

  O king, thy kingdom who from thee can wrest?
  What fate shall dare uncrown thee from this breast,
  O god-born lover, whom my love doth gird
  And armour with impregnable delight
  Of Hope's triumphant keen flame-carven sword?

THE QUEEN'S RIVAL

  QUEEN Gulnaar sat on her ivory bed,
  Around her countless treasures were spread;

  Her chamber walls were richly inlaid
  With agate, porphory, onyx and jade;

  The tissues that veiled her delicate breast,
  Glowed with the hues of a lapwing's crest;

  But still she gazed in her mirror and sighed
  "O King, my heart is unsatisfied."

  King Feroz bent from his ebony seat:
  "Is thy least desire unfulfilled, O Sweet?

  "Let thy mouth speak and my life be spent
  To clear the sky of thy discontent."

  "I tire of my beauty, I tire of this
  Empty splendour and shadowless bliss;

  "With none to envy and none gainsay,
  No savour or salt hath my dream or day."

  Queen Gulnaar sighed like a murmuring rose:
  "Give me a rival, O King Feroz."

II

  King Feroz spoke to his Chief Vizier:
  "Lo! ere to-morrow's dawn be here,

  "Send forth my messengers over the sea,
  To seek seven beautiful brides for me;

  "Radiant of feature and regal of mien,
  Seven handmaids meet for the Persian Queen."

. . . . .

  Seven new moon tides at the Vesper call,
  King Feroz led to Queen Gulnaar's hall

  A young queen eyed like the morning star:
  "I bring thee a rival, O Queen Gulnaar."

  But still she gazed in her mirror and sighed:
  "O King, my heart is unsatisfied."

  Seven queens shone round her ivory bed,
  Like seven soft gems on a silken thread,

  Like seven fair lamps in a royal tower,
  Like seven bright petals of Beauty's flower

  Queen Gulnaar sighed like a murmuring rose
  "Where is my rival, O King Feroz?"

III

  When spring winds wakened the mountain floods,
  And kindled the flame of the tulip buds,
  When bees grew loud and the days grew long,
  And the peach groves thrilled to the oriole's song,

  Queen Gulnaar sat on her ivory bed,
  Decking with jewels her exquisite head;

  And still she gazed in her mirror and sighed:
  "O King, my heart is unsatisfied."

  Queen Gulnaar's daughter two spring times old,
  In blue robes bordered with tassels of gold,

  Ran to her knee like a wildwood fay,
  And plucked from her hand the mirror away.

  Quickly she set on her own light curls
  Her mother's fillet with fringes of pearls;

  Quickly she turned with a child's caprice
  And pressed on the mirror a swift, glad kiss.

  Queen Gulnaar laughed like a tremulous rose:
  "Here is my rival, O King Feroz."

THE POET TO DEATH

  Tarry a while, O Death, I cannot die
  While yet my sweet life burgeons with its spring;
  Fair is my youth, and rich the echoing boughs
  Where dhadikulas sing.

  Tarry a while, O Death, I cannot die
  With all my blossoming hopes unharvested,
  My joys ungarnered, all my songs unsung,
  And all my tears unshed.

  Tarry a while, till I am satisfied
  Of love and grief, of earth and altering sky;
  Till all my human hungers are fulfilled,
  O Death, I cannot die!

THE INDIAN GIPSY

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

  With frugal skill her simple wants she tends,
  She folds her tawny heifers and her sheep
  On lonely meadows when the daylight ends,
  Ere the quick night upon her flock descends
  Like a black panther from the caves of sleep.

  Time's river winds in foaming centuries
  Its changing, swift, irrevocable course
  To far off and incalculable seas;
  She is twin-born with primal mysteries,
  And drinks of life at Time's forgotten source.

TO MY CHILDREN

Jaya Surya, aetat 4

  Golden sun of victory, born
  In my life's unclouded morn,
  In my lambent sky of love,
  May your growing glory prove
  Sacred to your consecration,
  To my heart and to my nation.
  Sun of victory, may you be
  Sun of song and liberty.

Padmaja, aetat 3

  Lotus-maiden, you who claim
  All the sweetness of your name,
  Lakshmi, fortune's queen, defend you,
  Lotus-born like you, and send you
  Balmy moons of love to bless you,
  Gentle joy-winds to caress you.
  Lotus-maiden, may you be
  Fragrant of all ecstasy.

Ranadheera, aetat 2

  Little lord of battle, hail
  In your newly-tempered mail!
  Learn to conquer, learn to fight
  In the foremost flanks of right,
  Like Valmiki's heroes bold,
  Rubies girt in epic gold.
  Lord of battle, may you be,
  Lord of love and chivalry.

Lilamani, aetat 1

  Limpid jewel of delight
  Severed from the tender night
  Of your sheltering mother-mine,
  Leap and sparkle, dance and shine,
  Blithely and securely set
  In love's magic coronet.
  Living jewel, may you be
  Laughter-bound and sorrow-free.

THE PARDAH NASHIN

  Her life is a revolving dream
  Of languid and sequestered ease;
  Her girdles and her fillets gleam
  Like changing fires on sunset seas;
  Her raiment is like morning mist,
  Shot opal, gold and amethyst.

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

  But though no hand unsanctioned dares
  Unveil the mysteries of her grace,
  Time lifts the curtain unawares,
  And Sorrow looks into her face . . .
  Who shall prevent the subtle years,
  Or shield a woman's eyes from tears?

TO YOUTH

  O Youth, sweet comrade Youth, wouldst thou be gone?
  Long have we dwelt together, thou and I;
  Together drunk of many an alien dawn,
  And plucked the fruit of many an alien sky.

  Ah, fickle friend, must I, who yesterday
  Dreamed forwards to long, undimmed ecstasy,
  Henceforward dream, because thou wilt not stay,
  Backward to transient pleasure and to thee?

  I give thee back thy false, ephemeral vow;
  But, O beloved comrade, ere we part,
  Upon my mournful eyelids and my brow
  Kiss me who hold thine image in my heart.

NIGHTFALL IN THE CITY OF HYDERABAD

  See how the speckled sky burns like a pigeon's throat,
  Jewelled with embers of opal and peridote.

  See the white river that flashes and scintillates,
  Curved like a tusk from the mouth of the city-gates.

  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.

STREET CRIES

  When dawn's first cymbals beat upon the sky,
  Rousing the world to labour's various cry,
  To tend the flock, to bind the mellowing grain,
  From ardent toil to forge a little gain,
  And fasting men go forth on hurrying feet,
  BUY BREAD, BUY BREAD, rings down the eager street.

  When the earth falters and the waters swoon
  With the implacable radiance of noon,
  And in dim shelters koils hush their notes,
  And the faint, thirsting blood in languid throats
  Craves liquid succour from the cruel heat,
  BUY FRUIT, BUY FRUIT, steals down the panting street.

  When twilight twinkling o'er the gay bazaars,
  Unfurls a sudden canopy of stars,
  When lutes are strung and fragrant torches lit
  On white roof-terraces where lovers sit
  Drinking together of life's poignant sweet,
  BUY FLOWERS, BUY FLOWERS, floats down the singing street.

TO INDIA

  O young through all thy immemorial years!
  Rise, Mother, rise, regenerate from thy gloom,
  And, like a bride high-mated with the spheres,
  Beget new glories from thine ageless womb!

  The nations that in fettered darkness weep
  Crave thee to lead them where great mornings break . . . .
  Mother, O Mother, wherefore dost thou sleep?
  Arise and answer for thy children's sake!

  Thy Future calls thee with a manifold sound
  To crescent honours, splendours, victories vast;
  Waken, O slumbering Mother and be crowned,
  Who once wert empress of the sovereign Past.

THE ROYAL TOMBS OF GOLCONDA

  I muse among these silent fanes
  Whose spacious darkness guards your dust;
  Around me sleep the hoary plains
  That hold your ancient wars in trust.
  I pause, my dreaming spirit hears,
  Across the wind's unquiet tides,
  The glimmering music of your spears,
  The laughter of your royal brides.

  In vain, O Kings, doth time aspire
  To make your names oblivion's sport,
  While yonder hill wears like a tier
  The ruined grandeur of your fort.
  Though centuries falter and decline,
  Your proven strongholds shall remain
  Embodied memories of your line,
  Incarnate legends of your reign.

  O Queens, in vain old Fate decreed
  Your flower-like bodies to the tomb;
  Death is in truth the vital seed
  Of your imperishable bloom
  Each new-born year the bulbuls sing
  Their songs of your renascent loves;
  Your beauty wakens with the spring
  To kindle these pomegranate groves.

TO A BUDDHA SEATED ON A LOTUS

  Lord Buddha, on thy Lotus-throne,
  With praying eyes and hands elate,
  What mystic rapture dost thou own,
  Immutable and ultimate?
  What peace, unravished of our ken,
  Annihilate from the world of men?

  The wind of change for ever blows
  Across the tumult of our way,
  To-morrow's unborn griefs depose
  The sorrows of our yesterday.
  Dream yields to dream, strife follows strife,

And Death unweaves the webs of Life.

  For us the travail and the heat,
  The broken secrets of our pride,
  The strenuous lessons of defeat,
  The flower deferred, the fruit denied;
  But not the peace, supremely won,
  Lord Buddha, of thy Lotus-throne.

  With futile hands we seek to gain
  Our inaccessible desire,
  Diviner summits to attain,
  With faith that sinks and feet that tire;
  But nought shall conquer or control
  The heavenward hunger of our soul.

  The end, elusive and afar,
  Still lures us with its beckoning flight,
  And all our mortal moments are
  A session of the Infinite.
  How shall we reach the great, unknown
  Nirvana of thy Lotus-throne?

[end]

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