Anthology of modern indian poetry

Francis Bacon it was who said, “Prefaces are great wastes of time, and tho’ they seem to proceed of modesty, they are bravery.” It is necessary, however, in the present instance to make a stand against the somewhat sweeping convictions of the Elizabethan master. The call of Youth in India is a hot young call, trumpeting down the ages through a maze of polytheistic tribute, and emerging in the twentieth century with some of its original clearness of sound drowned by a Gargantuan thunder of Western drums. The Indian poet of to-day is torn, like the Indian painter, between admiration for Western models and a desire to mould himself thereon, and an inherent Indian tradition that runs in his veins and will not be denied. Indeed, it is pity to deny it. Sir Edmund Gosse persuaded Sarojini Naidu to tear up her poems about English life and to write of her own Indian bazaars and cities, villages and festivals, for which persuasion we are indeed indebted to Sir Edmund. We of the West do not want from the East poetic edifices built upon a foundation of Yeats and Shelley and Walt Whitman. We want genuine Taj Mahals and Juma Masjids, cameos of rural sweetness and the hopes of faithful hearts. We want to hear the flute of Krishna as Radha heard it, to fall under the spell of the blue god “in the lotus-heart of dreams.” For there is much to learn from the melody of Eastern thought. It is, perhaps, a minor melody born of the mating of Love and Death, but it has its seed in an innate spiritual rapture that no Western veneer can wholly cover.

In the bulk of Indian poetry religious feeling predominates, as is only natural in a country of many but steadfast faiths.

Subjugation of the Self leading to a merging of that Self with God. India writes largely from the “Inner Vision.” This disallows of foreign influence, but the poet is necessarily inspired as well by an everyday atmosphere which he enriches from the strength of his own perception. The steps of the bathing-ghâts in Calcutta may be of Sheffield cast-iron, but the country that could produce a Taj Mahal—“stone turned into a dream,” D. G. Mukerji calls it—will never lose the innate artistic vision of her soul. So the creative prayers of this mighty cosmopolitan multitude surge upwards in a song of glory till they reach the stars. Love of life is love of art because life is art and art is life. We chase after fleeting perfection, a rosy cloud, a glint of eternity in a lily-pool, a drop of dew trembling on a flower-petal, moments of heaven in worlds of chaos. To catch a mood of Nature and transfer it to paper; to wring from the heart of an instrument one swift emotional phase after another: is it futile? is it useless?

asks Harindranath Chattopadhyaya in one of his poems not published here, echoing the cry of Li Po:

In Indian poetry, the mystic element shines through the outer decorative aspect.

We are roused from the beautiful lyrical lilt of Chattopadhyaya and of his sister, Sarojini Naidu, by the thunder of Muhammad Iqbal’s persuasive eloquence. He is a barrister-at-law at Lahore, an active Moslem opposed to Platonic illusion and non-progressive idealism.

Whether one agrees with his outlook or not, the fact remains that one cannot fail to be stirred by the intensely fiery spirit of Iqbal’s rhetorical writing. He is a leader. He sweeps everything before him like a great wind swirling through a forest of pines. He would re-create Islam, an active, non-Imperialistic, non-sensual Islam. In his own words, he is “the voice of the poet of To-morrow.” As Mr. R. A. Nicholson (his translator) says, the book “Asrar-i-Khudi” (Secrets of the Self), from which I have taken the extracts, “presents certain obscurities which no translation can entirely remove.” That is, of course, to European readers or to those not conversant with Persian poetry. For the book was originally written in Persian.

He is an inspiring philosopher.

I have spoken of the Youth of India, but the contributors to this volume range in age from the twenties to the seventies. There is little need for me to speak of Rabindranath Tagore. Mr. Edward Thompson (to whom I am indebted for the three translations) has acted in a Boswellian capacity, and the poet is as well known in England as are the great poets of our own nationality. I would draw attention, however, to the beautiful concluding lines of “Urvasi”:

The flute-call of memory bringing restlessness and a strange peace on its liquid cadences. And a dimness of tears to stir the dust of Hope to life. “Ah, Unfettered One!” I have included some translations of Indian songs as sung by native singers, because I thought they might be of interest from an indigenous point of view. Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy, of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., is responsible for their English rendering. The one commencing “Quietly come, O Beauty, come,” has a mystical meaning. We drift then into the Punjab, the Land of Five Waters, and find Puran Singh, the Sikh poet, breathing the musk of God-love through nostrils ever open to receive a spiritual fragrance.

It blows the perfume of the Beauty that is Worship into the heart of this devout enthusiast. His mind is a casket that holds the most precious gems of the Sikh religion and ideals, and gives them forth to an unenlightened world. Nanak, Gobind, Teg Bahadur, the names of the Ten Masters (whose lives he has written) sound in his ears day and night.

The loneliness of exile rings through the quivering poems of Manmohan Ghose.

All true poets love trees; Manmohan Ghose is no exception:

Mrs. Pankajini Basu is represented by one poem, “Basanta Panchami,” a description of the famous Spring Festival. One line, in particular, stands out: “Ever sorrowful, ever ill-starred, are we women of Bengal, all of us,” and, one might add, ever devout, ever faithful. The eternal question of Indian womanhood cannot be dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders. Mrs. Naidu’s lines:

seem to strike at the heart of the matter. Time alone will solve a problem which at the moment is very vexed indeed. It would seem almost that in their poems these Indian women express all the fullness of their hearts in love-songs, hymns of conjugal devotion, lamentations, praise of physical beauty, and tributes of faith. Emotional outlets of warm, loyal natures, yet always with the underlying sadness that is the birthright of Hind, like an anthem at evening or the eyes of a convent sister. Melancholy glides like pearly vapour through “The Island Grave” of Sri Aurobindo Ghose:

Death, to the Oriental, is a small and yet a great matter. He welcomes rather than fears it. The body, being but the shell of the soul, is of little account, save, perhaps, for its procreative value as a creator of further beings in the image of God. Death, then, is a joyful thing, and there is but a thin line between the wedding-song and the funeral dirge.

The blue bird of truth is flying against a sky of such intense blueness as to be almost indistinguishable—Ananda Acharya’s “blue of Indra.” This poet sends his “snow-blossoms” of Indian thought forth from the cool earth of Norway. He lives there amid his “Arctic Swallows,” and in his later work has grafted Asian feeling, in a curious way, upon a shoot of Scandinavian origin. There is, of course, a strange affinity between the Nordic peoples and the Asian. The strain flowed through Northern Russia, south to Persia, and thence into India, the type gradually changing from blue-eyed, fair-skinned folk to olive skins and “flaming eyes, like thunder skies. So deep and dark....”

Jehangir Jivaji Vakil’s three little poems have not hitherto been published. The one commencing “O long black hair of love” has an almost Japanese brevity, and compresses into four lines quite a wealth of ardent feeling.

India is rich in legendary history and does not lack for romantic and dramatic episodes in her actual chronicles. I have, nevertheless, found little of the narrative style of poetry among the modern poets. Historical and legendary references are occasionally met with, but they are usually incidental, and little use has been made of a richly-equipped storehouse. Adi K. Sett has utilised this method in “Roshanara,” Inayat Khan in “Tansen,” and Tagore (in a measure) in “Urvasi.” Apparently the lyrical style or the sonnet-form has the greatest appeal.

Narayan Vaman Tilak was a Christian mystic. His poems breathe all the fervour of the convert.

I have included Zahir, Ghalib, and Amir, because, though not modern in a strict sense, as is, say, Fredoon Kabraji, they have been translated by living people, namely, Mrs. J. D. Westbrook and Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan.

Whether this is the dawn-time of a new era of Indian poetic thought, who shall say? These Eastern singers, Bengali, Punjabi, Hindu, Mohammedan, Sikh, Christian, have upon their shoulders a yoke of heavy responsibility. They have to support and become worthy of the mighty tradition that lies behind them. Song should be theirs naturally, but it is one thing to preserve the metre in their own particular tongues and another to wrestle with the technicalities of English. There are many more modern poets in India from whom I might have chosen, but the scope of the book forbids the inclusion of more material.

The Indian twilight descends, gentle and swift, “wizard clocks ring out and rend the calm.” The dark rich blue of night, peridot-studded, swings a baby-moon high above inky palm and gleaming tomb. The poet sits in contemplation. “The lotus dreams upon the lyric melodies of day....”

Gwendoline Goodwin.

Sheffield,
December 8th, 1926.

I beg to acknowledge indebtedness to the following for permissions accorded to reproduce poems:

1. Oxford University Press (Heritage of India Series). (Poems by Indian Women.)

Professor Farquhar, of Manchester University.
Mrs. Margaret Macnicol, Miss D. Whitehouse.

2. Messrs. William Heinemann, Ltd.

Mrs. Sarojini Naidu.
“The Golden Threshold.”
“The Broken Wing.”
“The Bird of Time.”

3. Blackwell (Oxford)

Poems of Manmohan Ghose.
Mr. Laurence Binyon.

4. “Poetry Review” (Mr. Galloway Kyle)

Poems by Mrs. Elsa Kazi.

5. Longmans, Green & Co.

Nanikram Vasanmal Thadani.
“Krishna’s Flute”

6. Adi K. Sett.

“Roshanara.”

7. Srinavasa Varadachari & Co.

Sonnets.
Prof. P. Seshadri, of Benares Hindu University.

8. Indian Press, Ltd. (Allahabad)

Prof. P. Seshadri.
“Vanished Hours.”
“Champak Leaves.”

9. The Sufi Movement (Southampton)

Inayat Khan and Mrs. Jessie Duncan Westbrook.
“Diwan.”
Hindustani Lyrics.

10. J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.

Puran Singh and Bhai Vir Singh.
“Sisters of the Spinning-Wheel.”
“Nargas.”

11. Jehangir Jivaji Vakil.

(Three poems hitherto unpublished.)

12. Messrs. Ernest Benn, Ltd.

(Augustan Books of Modern Poetry.)
Poems of Rabindranath Tagore.
Mr. Edward Thompson.
Mr. C. F. Andrews.

13. Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

“The Secrets of the Self.”
Muhammad Iqbal (Lahore).
Mr. R. A. Nicholson.
Sri Ananda Acharya.
“Book of the Cave” (see Notes).

14. The Brahmakul Gaurisankar (Alvdal, Norway)

Sri Ananda Acharya.
“Saki.”
“Usarika.”

15. Theosophical Publishing House (Adyar, Madras)

Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.
“Feast of Youth.”

Shama’a, Madras

“Out of the Deep Dark Mould.”
“Magic Tree.”

16. Fredoon Kabraji.

17. Messrs. Luzac & Co.

Thirty Indian Songs.
Ananda Coomaraswamy.

18. Association Press (Calcutta)

Poems of Narayan Vaman Tilak.
Mr. D. N. Tilak (Copyright of Marathi originals).
Rev. J. C. Winslow.

19. Sri Aurobindo Ghose (Pondicherry).

The object of the Editors of this series is a very definite one. They desire above all things that, in their humble way, these books shall be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding between East and West—the old world of Thought and the new of Action. In this endeavour, and in their own sphere, they are but followers of the highest example in the land. They are confident that a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy of Oriental thought may help to a revival of that true spirit of Charity which neither despises nor fears the nations of another creed and colour.

L. CRANMER-BYNG.
S. A. KAPADIA.

Northbrook Society,
Imperial Institute,
S.W.7.

Prologue

All my guilt of old, sin upon sin, put far, far away. Give, O Lord, give in my heart the melody of a new song.

To stir to life my withered, unfeeling heart, near to death and poor, play thy melody on the bīnā, taking ever a new tune.

As in Nature thy sweetness overflows, so let thy compassion wake in my heart.

In the midst of all things may thy loving face float before my eyes. May no rebel thought against thy wish ever wake in my heart.

Day by day, before I set foot in life’s forest, may I crave thy blessing and so advance, my Lord.

Setting thy commands upon my head, may I with unfaltering care accomplish my every task in the remembrance of thy feet.

Giving to thee the fruit of my task fulfilled, at the end of day may my wearied spirit and body find rest.

Hurrying have I come from far away, knowing thee compassionate. A hundred hindrances there were to my coming. How many thorns fill the path to my goal. So, to-day, behold! my heart is wounded, my life is dark. Hurrying have I come from far away, knowing thee compassionate.

Open thou thy door of mercy. My raft of life drifts on the boundless ocean. Fearlessness art thou, and ever powerful. Nought have I, I am weak and poor. My heart is thirsting for thy lotus feet. The day is now far spent. Open thou thy door of mercy. My raft of life drifts on the boundless ocean.[9]

Lo! the heavy rain has come! With loosened tresses densely dark, lo! the sky is covered. Lightnings rend the thick darkness over the mountains. All around, to my heart’s content, I see that beauty has burst forth.

See, frolicsome, she pours forth her loveliness in a thousand streams! Her raiment, hastily flung around her in disarray, mad passion in her eyes, with the voice of the pāpiyā, full of sweetness and pity, she sings.

Slowly move her feet. Slipping, slipping, falls her loosely hanging scarf. Her heart throbs with tumultuous feeling. As if a flood of beauty overflows, her green jacket of emerald grass displays the hue of her radiant beauty all around.

The anklets on her feet, keeping time, ring out in swift succession, as if they were sweet cymbals. Round her lovely throat hangs her chain of emerald parrots. The rain has ceased and she garbs herself in silken robes broidered with diamond raindrops.

She gladdens the eye. On the treetops birds play on golden tambourines. Is the dancer dancing in Indra’s hall, casting restless glances here and there? Urbasī[10] puts off the chain of jewels from her breast.

How gay her laughter! How fair a dance her tinkling footsteps weave! Her bracelets and bangles circle glittering. She is girdled with melody of murmuring swans. For her earth and sky swoon away, overflowing with love.

Her hands touched the bīnā[11] and by her spell enthralled my infatuated heart. Tears stream from my eyes; infatuation floods my heart. The witch to-day has melted my timid heart. Lo! the heavy rain has come.

Dearest, I know that thy body is but transitory; that the kindled life, thy shining eyes, shall be quenched by the touch of death, I know; that this thy body, the meeting-place of all beauty, in seeing which I count my life well-lived, shall become but a heap of bones, I know. Yet I love thy body. Day by day afresh through it have I satisfied a woman’s love and desire by serving thy feet and worshipping thee. On days of good omen I have decked thee with a flower-garland; on days of woe I have wiped away with my sārī end thy tears of grief. O my lord, I know that thy soul is with the Everlasting One, yet waking suddenly some nights I have wept in loneliness, thinking how thou didst drive away my fear, clasping me to thy breast. And so I count thy body as the chief goal of my love, as very heaven.[14]

We are indeed children of Light. What an endless mart goes on in the Light! In the Light is our sleeping and waking, the play of our life and death.

Beneath one great canopy, in the ray of one great sun, slowly, very slowly, burn the unnumbered lamps of life.

In the midst of this unending Light I lose myself; amidst this intolerable radiance I wander like one blind.

We are indeed children of Light. Why then do we fear when we see the Light? Come, let us look all around and see, here no man hath cause for any fear.

In this boundless ocean of Light, if a tiny lamp goes out, let it go; who can say that it will not burn again?

She went on the wrong way; she has come back again; afar off she stands, her head bowed down with shame and fear; she does not step forward, she cannot raise her eyes—go near, take her hand, call her and bring her.

To-day turn not your face away in silent reproach; to-day let eyes and words be filled with the nectar of love. What good will come from pouring scorn on the past? Think of her dark future, take her by the hand and bring her.

Lest for lack of love this shamed soul fling away repentance, bring her, call and bring her. She has come to give herself up; bind her fast with loving arms; if she goes to-day, what if she never comes again?

By one day’s neglect, one day’s contempt and anger, you will lose a life for ever. Do you not purpose to give life? Neglect is a poisoned arrow; with sorrowing pardon bring her, call and bring her.

To-day, after a year, on the sacred fifth day, Nature has flung away her worn raiment, and with new jewels, see, with fresh buds and new shoots she has begemmed herself and smiles. The birds wing their way, singing with joy; ah, how lovely! The black bee hums as if with sound of “Ulu! ulu!” he wished good fortune to Nature. The south breeze seems to say as it flits from house to house, “To-day Bīnāpāni[16] comes here to Bengal.” Arrayed in guise that would enrapture even sages, maid Nature has come to worship thy feet, O propitious one! See, O India, at this time all pay no heed to fear of plague, famine, earthquake; all put away pain and grief and gloom; to-day all are drunk with pleasure. For a year Nature was waiting in hope for this day to come. Many folk in many a fashion now summon thee, O white-armed one; I also have a mind to worship. Thy two feet are red lotuses; but, say, with what gift shall we worship thee, O mother Bīnāpāni? Ever sorrowful, ever ill-starred are we women of Bengal, all of us. Yet if thou have mercy, this utterly dependent one will worship thee with the gift of a single tear of devotion shed on thy lotus feet. Graciously accept that, and in mercy, O white-armed one, grant this blessing on my head on this propitious, sacred day, that this life may be spent in thy worship, Mother.

From the rose-gardens of Time, fragrant and fresh, in ecstasies of light—Day has come! How many an age of silent love hath breathed and breathed upon his cheeks that tender flush of rose?

The blue in his eyes—from what lakes of enchantment hath he drunk? The radiant colours of his thought—from what infinite wonder hath he made? The glory of his love for whom, for whom hath he brought? For whom, for whom the music of his clouds, his winds, his birds? The secrets of his soul for whom, for whom?

A Lotus-bud has opened; ere she was born the pain of a vast music did fill and fill her soul with a vain constant hope; in the ecstasy of that pain she bloomed into flower.

The Lotus dreams upon the lyric melodies of Day.

In the sunset hush of evening she folds her petals upon the memories of Day, enwoven with her fragrant devotions.

In the secrecy of Night she sings her praise, making the deeps of the dark melodious.

The glory of his love for whom, for whom doth he bring? For whom, for whom the music of his clouds, his winds, his birds?

The secrets of his soul for whom, for whom?

Tulip, tell me, what do you hold in your cup?

I hold in my cup the magic that swells the thirst of your soul, O Mother, when you look on the form of your child; the opiate that fills your dream, Mother, with the awe of the Unknown!

But, Tulip, tell me, why do you guard your magic beyond the wing of melody?

Because, ere Thought was, a kiss of Love did capture Death in the Seed of Life. That is why no melody of Life can hold all the magic in my cup, Mother; that is why Love cannot hold your child in Life alone!

The Queen Roshanara is sad and weeps in the absence of her lord in battle. Her maidens strive to comfort her:

[This song is sung to a purely folk-air, not in any definite rāg.]

Note.—The story goes that Gāmī wrote the song about a girl of Kutahār (a village in the Maraz pargana of Kāshmīr) named Azmē, and that it became the occasion of trouble for its author. Complaints were made about Gāmī, and his father reported the matter to the Tahsildār of the district; but the poet explained that Azmē meant “to-day” and that the whole song had only a Sufī significance.

Note.—By the names Shārikā, Rāginyā, etc., are meant places as well as the divinities worshipped. Thus Shārikā (Satī, Pārvatī) is Hari Parbat, where there is a festival to Shārikā in March; Rāginyā (Kīr Bavānī) is an island at Inlamul, where there is a festival in May; Zālā (another form of Pārvatī) is a hill where there is a festival in June; Shivajī is a village in the Zainager pargana; Nārāyan is a tīrtha near Bāramuta.

Râjhans! The Golden Swan! Is it thy plumage that shines, or the sunrise on the eternal snows?

The dweller of Mân-Sarôwar, the lake on the roof of the world! Thy golden beak parts milk from water, in the living stream thou art a liberated soul!

A rosary of spotless pearls is in thy beak, and how sublime is the lofty curve of thy neck against the Heaven’s vast azure!

Thou livest on pearls, the nectar drops so pure of Hari Nam.

Great Soul! lover of the azure transparent Infinite! Thou canst not breathe out of the Mân-Sarôwar air, nor canst thou live out of sight of those loftiest peaks of snow, and away from the diluted perfume of musk blowing from the wild trail of the deer!

Thou art the spirit of Beauty, thou art far beyond the reach of human thought. Thy isolation reflecteth the glory of the starry sky in thy Nectar Lake of Heart in whose waters the sun daily dips himself!

Thou hast the limitless expanse of air, the companionship of fragrant gods,

And yet we know thou leavest those Fair Abodes to come to share the woes of human love;

Thou alightest unawares on the grain-filled barn of the humble farmer, awakening Nature’s maiden hearts, thou informest love.

It is thy delight to see woman love man, the small ripplings of a human heart in love flutter thee in thy lofty seat.

Thou art the soul liberated through love; thou knowest the worth of love, flying for its sake even midst the cities’ smoke and dust, perchance, to save a human soul through love!

The vaulted roof opens. The guests feel that a Being is entering from above. They see nothing, but all hear a voice in the air.

The Being rises up through the open roof, and the guests hear his voice dying away in the far-off sky. The vault of the Hall closes. The southern door opens. A Being enters. They hear his voice.

Voice in the Air:

The light dies out, leaving the Hall in darkness. After a while a kind of murky earth-light diffuses itself over the lower part of the Hall. The guests hear the sound of a mighty crying, like the wailing of a sacked city in the far distance. A voice, broken by sighs and groans, speaks from below.

Voice: