CHAPTER -SIX

Imagery and Art

Imagery:
Poetic imagery is the artistic and effective use of
language to help the reader get something of the feel and
vision of the poet-artist at work. It helps to recreate
the experience of the poet in the reader for a better
appreciation of the poet's way of looking at a thing and
presenting it. It may be defined as the attempt of the
poet to compress into words - dynamic, vivid and
suggestive - the emotional state through which he passes
while viewing an object, contemplating a scene or
presenting and analysing a situation. It is the use of
appropriate words or figures of speech that would express
effectively just what the poet sees and feels at a
particular moment of inspiration.

Most of the crities have defined imagery as the

representation, through language of sense experience. Fred
B. Millet remarks: "Students of literature are indebted to
modern psychology for its investigation of imagery, the
element that produces the effect of vividness. Imagery is
the result of the evocation, with varying degrees of
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clarity, of mental reproductions, representations, or

imitations of sense perceptions." According to R.H.
Fogle:
To the psychologists and many critics imagery in
poetry is the expression of sense experience,
channelled through sight, hearing, smell, touch and
taste, though these channels are impressed upon the
mind and set forth in verse in such a fashion as to
recall as vividly and faithfully as possible the
original sensation. In these terras a poetic image
2
is the record of a single sensation.
Imagery is present when two things are put together in
order that their relationships may be seen, provided that
in these relationships the element of similarity is
present. "A simple image, then, is a verbal comparison, a
figure of speech. A complex image may be a fusion of
simple images, a poem, a scene from a play or even the
3
play itself." Summing up the essence of imagery, Fogle
further states:

1. Fred B. Millet, Reading Poetry (New York: Harper &

Brothers, 1950), p. 47.
2. Richard Harter Fogle, The Imagery of Keats and Shelley
(Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press,
1949), p. 3.

3. Fogle, p. 22.
 293

Imagery is the living principle of language, ... our

speech advances and is constantly revivified by the
discovery and expression of fresh analogies which
increase our knowledge of ourselves and of the world
... Good imagery is richly evocative, various in the
implication of its meaning.

The word 'image' most often suggests a mental

picture, something seen in the mind's eye. It is a word
picture that portrays a scene, describes a feeling,
expresses a thought or rather a picture. According to
C.Day Leavis: "In its simplest terms it is a picture made
2
out of words", "a word picture charged v/ith emotion or
o

passion", and "more or less sensuous picture in v;ords, to

same degree metaphorical, with an undertone of some human
emotion in its context, but also charged with and
releasing into the reader a special poetic emotion or
passion." Caroline Spurgeon viev7S the poetic image as the
"description of an idea, which by comparison or analogy,
stated or understood with something else, transmits to us
through the emotions and associations it arouses,
something of the wholeness, the depth and richness of the

1. Richard Harter Fogle,The Imagery of Keats and Shelley

(Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press,
1949), p. 22.
2. C.Day Leavis, The Poetic Image (London: Jonathan Cape,
195l1, p. 18. ^
3. Ibid., p. 20.
4. Ibid., p. 22.
 294

way the writer views, conceives or has felt what he

is telling us.""*-
A poetic image, while aiming at a reflection of
reality, does not merely reproduce or capture reality, it
presents things from a certain perspective, a certain
angle of vision and experience. It does- not give us the
mere fact of the thing, but an aspect of the fact, not so
much the fact as the sense of fact, not so much a picture
as a feeling about the picture. It need not present the
full picture, but only the parts that catch the eye and
the imagination of the poet. The poet may exaggerate a
certain aspect for effect or may prune it for the same
purpose. The poet being a man of heightened sensibility
and feeling, can make much of a scene or a situation, can
give it a colouring and a meaning,, an atmosphere and a
purpose that is beyond the capability of his more prosaic
viewers.

Much of the aesthetic pleasure a poem provides is

because of its imagery. The importance of imagery,
however, consists not only in investing words with
symbolic meanings and ideas, but through them evoking the

1. Caroline Spurgeon, Shakespeare's Imagery What it Tells

us (Cambridge University Press, 1935), p. W.
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atmosphere and the background against which an idea is to

be viewed and understood. Emphasizing the importance of
imagery, VJ.E. Williams remarks:
Poetry, whose concern is to make pictures no less
than to embody thought, needs imagery as
fundamentally as it needs sound and rhythm. And its
need for imagery is a more urgent one than that of
prose, in the exact proportion by which poetry is a
more compact and economical and transcendent form
of expression than prose. Poetry must use pictures
to save v7ords.

As an important ingredient of poetry, imagery helps in the

representation of feelings and the working of the mind
through pictures that possess the power of evoking
sensations and acting immediately upon the emotions.
Elizabath Drew is right when she remarks: "Indeed poetry
without images V70uld be an inert mass, for figurative
language is an essential part of its imagery". Robert
Frost considers imagery and metaphor as the most important
constituents of poetry: "There are many other things I
have found myself saying about poetry, but the chiefest of
these is that it is metaphor, saying one thing in terms of
3
another."

1. W.E. Williams, The Craft of Literature (London:

Methuen, 1930), p. 26.
2. Elizabeth Drew, Poetry (New York: Dell Pub. Co., 1973),
p. 51.
3. Ibid., p. 51.
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Imagery is important in that it reveals the mind

and heart of the poet, the place where images are
conceived. Through imagery the whole personality of the
poet is laid bare before us. Through it we know the way he
looks at things, the way his mind functions as it grasps
objects and ideas. Imagery is, thus, a valuable aid to
the understanding of the poet. Caroline Spurgeon refers to
this view when she remarks:
Like the man who under stress of emotions will show
no sign of it in eye or face,but reveal it in same
muscular tension, the poet unwillingly lays bare
his own- innermost likes and dislikes, observations
and interests, associations of thought, attitudes
of mind and beliefs, in and through images, the
verbal pictures to illuminate something quite
different in the speech and thought of his
characters.

The importance of imagery lies in perceptive

experience or even imaginative experience. Dark areas in
our minds are suddenly illumined as by a flash of
lightning when the significance of a comparision dawns on
us, specially when the comparison is uncommon and yet
startingly appropriate. A poet conceives his images from
different aspects of life and experiences. According to

1. Spurgeon, p. 4.
 297

P. Guerry: "So imagery is all important, and the true poet

has at his disposal imagery belonging to many diverse
fields of experience, and the greater the poet is,
possibly the more fields in the affairs of life will be at
his immediate disposal from which to draw his imagery.

Since imagery is the result of the evocations of

mental, reproductions, representations, or imitations of
sense perceptions, there are as many kinds of images as
there are senses. In fact, there are more kinds than the
ordinarily considered senses of sight, smell, taste,
touch, and sound. For psychologists have demonstrated a
sixth sense which they have named kinesthetic, a term
which they apply to the sensations of tension or
relaxation. Such images are evoked by words as "dive",
"scrunch", "rest", or "dally". More broadly, a
kinesthetic image may be that of any sensation arising
from the tensed or relaxed muscles, joints, and tendons of
the body. Thus sensuous imagery includes visual (sight),
auditory (sound), tactile (Touch), olfactory (smell),
qustatory (taste), and kinesthetic (sensations of
movement) qualities.

1. P. Guerry, The Appreciation of Poetry (London: O.U.P.,

1968), p . 46::
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Visual images are more common than images

pertaining to other senses. This is why earlier imagery
was considered to be visual only. Though most images have
faint visual associations adhering to them, there are
images that are connected with other sense organs as well.
If we analyse sight-images closely v;e can distinguish a
number of sight-images, namely, colour, size, shape,
position and movement, illustrated by such words as
'blue', 'mountain', 'cat', 'near' and 'dive'. The word
'dive' makes it clear that certain words may evoke not
merely sight images but also distinct kinds of other
images. From the word 'dive', for example, certain readers
will get a visual image, while others a kinesthetic image.
Sometimes an image is not confined to a single sense. It
may be a mixture of several kinds of sensations. When
Edith sitwell wrote: "The light is braying like an ass",
or Swinburne said: "The voice is an odour that fades in a
flame", they were bringing in one kind of sense perception
to express one of another kind. This mixing up of
different sensations for better expression of thought and
feeling is called ". S3masthesia'l.
 299

Although every image partakes of a sensuous

characteristic, it does not mean that any sensuous
statement would automatically become an image. It must
also have the qualities of emotion and passion. C.Day
Leavis remarks: "Every image recreates not merely an
object but an object in the context of that experience and
thus an object is a part of relationship."

There is a difference in the images evoked by a

word and the rmages involved in the associations aroused
by that word. According to psychologists 'association' is
the ability to bring up from experience and memory
circumstances that are relevant to some word that refers
to a person, place, object of Experience. "Free
association" suggests the unrestrained evocation of
relevant or irrelevant remembered circumstances. In the
analysis of imagery one has to distinguish between the
images immediately evoked by the words and the images
involved in the personal associations those words have for
the reader. To allow excessive weight to one's 'private'
associations with the poet's words is to run the risk of
creating a poem quite distinct from the one the poet
intends us to experience.

1. C D . Leavis, p. 17.
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One has also to distinguish between the image

suggested by a word when it stands alone and the image
suggested by the word in a particular context. For
instance, the image aroused by the word "red", when it is
alone, will not be the same image as that which is aroused
by the word when it is associated with the word "sunset".
We are concerned primarily with the images that arise from
a word in a particular context.

There is a definite pattern in the selection and

use of images by a great poet. At any one moment of time
many impressions and connections clog the mind of a poet.
He, however, screens the mass of images that accumulate
in his mind and chooses one that conveys most his shade of
meaning, the one most appropriate for the task in hand. He
sees that it works into the texture of the poem, so that
there is a concord between image and theme, the image
lighting the way for the theme and helping to reveal it to
the writer and more to the reader.

It is essential that an image is not allowed to

become too independent of the poem. Since an image is only
a means to an end, it should not be allowed to take on
more significance than can be given it in the context in
which it is placed. It must not be permitted to pull away
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the mind of the reader from the main theme or argument. It

is to be seen that a definite pattern of the images is
evolved and that the various images do not clash with one
another. There should be maintained congruity and
consistency of impression in them not only for the benefit
of the reader but also for the purpose of the poet. A
surfeit of imagery is as harmful as the lack of it makes a
poem or even a prose composition dull and insipid reading.

An important point to bear in mind in regard to the

creation of an image is that while a poet can create an
image from any given object provided his imaginative
response to it is strong. enough, the image so created
must be intelligible to the large body of readers. It
should not be too exclusive, too esoteric for its meaning
and relevance to be totally hid from the reader otherwise
instead of illuminating, the image would do the v;ork or
making the meaning obscure, as is so often the case with
the metaphysical poets.

The primary function of the image is to establish 2

kind of emotional bond between the poet and his reader.
The image creates a kind of order out of emotional and
intellectual confusion, since the world around us is a
riot of objects and the world of thought not a little less
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so. Some sort of selection and arrangement of parts, of

drawing connections and parallels, if even for purposes of
illustration, is necessary. The image, in a way, does the
work of the esemplastic imagination of Coleridge,
accepting, rejecting,moulding thoughts and feelings into
keeping v;ith each other in a lucidly conceived design. It
establishes an emotional link between the poet and the
external world, the varied world of nature and the v;orld
of sensation, letting the poet give play to fancy, letting
him draw infinite comparisions and equations.

Imagery in Sarojini's Poetry:

Sarojini Naidu is the most enchanting of Indian
English poets. She was not only endowed with a lively
imagination but also nourished on the romantic and
aesthetic traditions in English poetry. She therefore
delighted in sensuous and aesthetic perceptions rather
than thought and developed into one of the greatest of
lyricists and image-makers in the Indian English poetry.
Her Poetry reveals the mature note of conscious artistry
and a close parallel between modes of poetry, music and
painting. It unrolls before our eyes innumerable dazzling
visions and a rich tapestry and gorgeous and ornate
images. Not only her sense perceptions are quick and
alert, she has also a rare gift of communicating these
 303

perceptions by vivid, picturesque, impressionistic and

sensuous imagery. Her immagery is derived from the rich,
colourful and varied scenes of nature around her as well
as Indian myths, folkdore and luxuriant images ^Oriental
sources. CommentingX)n the Indian Character of her V.S.Narvane remarks :

However, the strongest feature of Sarojini's poetry

is her vivid imagery. Her most memorable lines are
those in v;hich she has presented beautiful and
graphic pictures by fusing together several visual
impressions. It should be stressed, once again,
that these images can be appreciated only by those,
who have retained their sensitivity to the subtle
stimuli v;hich come from the Indian environment, and
who still have a feeling for aspects of Indian life
nov7 rarely experienced in our modern cities.

Sarojini's poetry presents a delightful feast of

metaphors and similes. Metaphor most commonly plays a
pivotal role in the creation of an image. It is the mediua
through v;hich the poetic vjorld is related to the real
v7orld. Through metaphor, the specialized view of things is
revealed by the poet and relationships established,
relationships that might never have been noticed by others
since they are peculiarly a particular poet's. It is a
particular experience. Since it is the business of the

1. Naravane, p. 139.
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poet to perceive such relationships, to shov; that there is

a unity underlying and relating all phenomena, the image
comes in handy for the purpose. The image faculty of a
poet makes him discover or rediscover or even renovate old
connections betv;een objects and feelings. This seeing of
relationships and similarities in things at first sight
dissimilar is the essence of the poetic image, its basic
nature so to say. The image is built_up as a result of all
past and present experience of the possesser of the iraage-
According to T.S. Eliot "Only a part of an author's
imagery comes from his reading. It comes from the whole of
his sensitive life since early childhood."

A distinctive feature of the poem "A Rajput Love

Song" is a string of varied metaphors used in it. The
beloved Parvati images her lover to be "a basil v^reath",
"a jewelled clasp of shining gold", "keora's soul", "a
bright, Vermillion tassel", "the scented fan", "a sandal
lute", and "a silver lamp":
0 love! vjere you a basil-wreath to twine among mj
tresses,
A jev7elled clasp of shining gold to bind around mj
sleeve,

1. T.S. Eliot, Selected Prose (Penguin Books, 1955), p.95.

 305

0 Love! were you the "keora' s soul that haunts my

silhen raiment,
A bright, vermillion tassel in the girdles that
I v^eave;

(p. 80)
Amar Singh wishes, his beloved Parvati to be "the
hooded hav;k", "turban spray" or "floating heron-feather",
and "an amulet of jade".
0 Love! were you the hooded hawk upon my hand that
flutters,
Its collar-band of gleaming bells atinkle as I ride
0 Love! v/ere you a turbon-spray of floating heron-
feather.
The radiant, sv;ift, unconquered sv;ord that swingeth
at my side,
0 Love! vjere you a shield against the arrows of my
foemen,
An amulet of jade against the perils of the way.
(p. 81)
The "day" in this poem is described as a "wild stallion".
"subtle bride of my mellifluous wooing", and "The
silver-breasted moonbeam of desire".
Come, thou subtle bride of my mellifluous v;ooing,
Come, thou silver-breasted moonbeam of desire.
(p. 8)
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In "Bangle Sellers", bangles are imagined to be "shining

loads", "rainbow-tinted circles of light", and "lustrous
tokens of radiant lives":
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 token of radiant lives.
For happy daughters and happy wives.
(p. 108)

The poems "In Praise of Gulmohur Blossoms " and

"Golden Cassia" contains a series of metaphors. "In Praise
of Gulmohar Blossoms", the lovely hue of gulmohur blossoms
is linked to "the glimmering red of a bridal role" or
"rich red of a wild bird's wing"; and golmohur blossoms
are called "gorgeous boon of the spring".

VJhat can rival your lovely hue

0 Gorgeous boon of the spring?
The glimmering red of a bridal robe.
Rich red of a wild bird's wing?
Or the mystic blaze of the gem that burns
On the brow of a serpent king?
(p. 94)
In the second stanza, "The valiant joy" of the gulmohur
blossoms' "dazzling, fugitive sheen" is similar to:
 307

The limpid clouds of the lustrous davjn

That colour the ocean's mien?
Or the blood that poured from a thousand breasts
To succour a Rajput queen?
(p. 94)

"The radiant pride" of gulmohur blossoms" "victorious

fire" is:
The flame of hope or the flame of hate,
Quick flame of my heart's desire?
Or the rapturous light leaps to heaven
From a true wife's funeral pyre?
(p. 94)
In "Golden Cassia", the golden cassias are
"fragments of some fallen stars", or "golden pitchers of
fairy wine", or "glimmering tears that some fair bride
shed remembering her lost maidenhood", or "glimmering
ghosts of a bygone dream":
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 v/ine.

Perchance you are, 0 frail and sweet!

Bright anklet-bells from the v;ild spring's feet.

Or the gleaming tears that some fair bride shed

Remembering her lost maidenhood.
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But now, in theraemorieddusk you seem

The glimmering ghosts of a bygone dream.
(p. 96)
The poem "Farev7ell" is a string of metaphors for
the poet's songs:
Bright shower of lambent butterflies,
Soft cloud of murmuring bees,
0 fragile storm of siging leaves
A drift upon the breeze!

VJild birds with eager wings outspread

To seek an alien sky.
Sweet comrades of a lyric spring
Hy little songs, good-bye!

(p. 139)
In the poet "Past and Future", the past is a "mountain
cell":
Uhere love, apart, old hermit-memories dwell
In consecrated calm, forgotten yet
Of the keen heart that hastens to forget
Old longings in fulfilling nev; desires.
(p. 34)
Most of Sarojini Naidu's verses are embellished
with varied types of beautiful similes which present
scintillating images and make her poetry revealing. A
simile is an expanded metaphor. It makes comparison
between two dissimilar objects more explicit by the use of
 309

such v;ords as "as", "like", to show that comparison is

being made. Like a metaphor simile is also used to focus
on unfamiliar qualities or to give familiar qualities
unusual vividness and stress. The important point is not
that the tv70 things being compared resemble eachother
closely in certain qualities for v^hich they are compared,
but that the feeling that is normally associated with one
can be transferred to the other.

In the poem "Past and Future", The Soul is likened

to a bridegroom and his future like a "fated bride",
hidden behind the veil:
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 future shrinking there alone.
Beneath her marriage-veil of mysteries.

The poem "Alabastor" is an extended simile comparing the

poet's heart v;ith "alabastor box":
Like this alabastor box whose art
Is frail as a cassia-flower, is my heart,
Carven v;ith delicate dreams and wrought
with many a subtle and exquisite thought.

Therein I treasure the spice and scent

Of rich and passionate memories blent
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Like odours of cinnamn, sandal and clove,

Of song and sorrow and life and love.
(p. 24)
In "The Palanquin-Bearers", the maiden in the
palnquin "sways like a flower"; "skins like a bird";
"floats like a laugh"; "hangs like a star"; "springs like
a beam on the brow of the' tide"; "falls like a tear fron
the eyes of a bride". The Palanquin-bearers bear her along
in their palanquin" "like a pearl on a string2 (p.3). In
the poem "Indian VJeavers", the robes of a new-born child
are "blue as the wing of a halcyon bird", the
narriage-veils of a '.qieen" lilcs the plumes of a peacock"
and a dead man's funeral shroud "white as a feather and
white as a cloud" (p. 5). In "Coromandel Fishers, there
is an apt and beautiful simile describing the wlmd lying
asleep in the arms of the dawn "like a child that has
cried all night":

Rise brothers, rise, the wakening shies pray to the

morning light,
The wind lies asleep in the arras of the dawn like a
child that has cried all might.
(p. 6)
"Indian Love-song" contains a string of similes. In
the first stanza, the lady-love describes her deep
feelings of love for her lover:
 311

Like a serpent to the calling voice of flutes,

Glides my heart into thy fingers, 0 my love!
Where the might-wind, like a lover, leans above
His jasmine-gardens and sirisha-bowers;
And on ripe boughs of many-coloured fruits
Bright parrots cluster like vermillion flowers.
The second stanza deels with the feelings of the lover for
his beloved:
Like the perfume in the petals of a rose.
Hides thy heart within my bosom, 0 my Love!
Like a garland, like a jewel, like a dove
That hangs its nest in the Ashoka-tree.
Lie still, 0 love, until the morning sows
Her tents of gold on fields of ivory.
(p. 16)
In "Humayun to Zubeida", the beloved haunts the
lover's waking "like a dream", his slumber "like a moon,
pervades him" like a musky scent and possesses him "like a
tune" (p. 22). The poem "Autumn Song" has a beautiful
simile describing the sunset:

Like a joy on the heart of a sorrow,

The sunset hangs on a cloud:
(p. 23)
and another describing the dreams of the poet's weary
heart:
My heart is weary and sad and alone.
For its dreams like the fluttering leaves have gone.
(p. 23)
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In "The Song of Princess Zub-un-Nisan. In praise of

Her Own Beauty", the roses turn pale with envy on seeing
the beauty of the princess's face,
And from their pierced hearts rich with pain
Send forth their frageance like a wail.
(p. 38)
In "Indian Dancers", the wild and entrancing strain of
keen music cleave the stars "like a wail of desire", and
the glittering garments of purple of Indian dancers burn
"like tremulous dawn in the quivering air" (p. 39). In
"The Dance of Love the strains of music are described with
the help of a series of appropriate similes:
The music sighs and slumbers.
It stirs and sleeps again...
Hush, it wakes and weeps and nurrmurs.
Like a woman's heart in pain;
Now it laughs and calls and coaxes,
Like a lover in the might.
(p. 73)
The dancers sv;ay and shine "Like bright and windbloon
lilies" (p. 73).
In "The Queen's Rival" the seven new queens shine
round Queen Gulnar:
Like seven soft gems on a silken thread.
Like seven fair lamps in a royal tower.
Like seven bright petals of Beauty's flower.
(pp. 46-47)
 313

The poem "The Pardah Nashin" describes the life of

a pardah nashin through following appropriate similes:
Her life is a revolving dream
Of languid and sequestered ease;
Her girdles and her fillets gleam
Like changing fires an 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.
(p. 53)
There is such a surfeit of similes and metaphors in
Sarojini's poetry as annoys some of the critics. Lotika
Basu comments severely on the excessive use of similes and
metaphors in her verses:
One gets rather tired of the brilliant metaphors
and similes. They introduce an element of
artificiality in her poems. It makes them as
exotics that wither and die when compared to the
natural simplicity and bare beauty of the work of
the greatest artists. A few of her poems seem to be
v;ritten only for the sake of her metaphors and
similes.

1. Quoted by D. Prashad, p. 166.

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The rich use of similes and metaphors, however, reveals

the great potentiality of Sarojini's handling them as
pictorical blocks of imagistic perception and using them
for organizing her poetic emotions.

Sarojini Naidu has also made a very impressive use

of imagery pertaining to different sense perceptions.
There is a rich tapestry of visual and kinetic images
combined together. In the poem "Nightfall in the city of
Hyderabad", we get the visual images of bright colours:
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.
(p. 55)
Equally impressive is the image of night descending over
the city bridge:
Over the city bridge Night comes majestical
Borne like a queen to a sumptuous festival..
(p. 56)
In "Curved" and "borne", we have kinetic images.
In "The Indian Gipsy" Sarojini conveys the fall of
night through animal imagery:
 315

Ere the quick night upon her flock descends

Like a black panther from the caves of sleep.
(p. 50)
"On Juhu Sands" presents an image of moon shining
on the waters of sea:
On the sea's breast the young moonrise
Falls like a golden rose.
(The Feather of the Davm, p.23)
In"Palanquin-Bearers", Sarojini makes use of visual and
kinetic images to describe the scene of a maiden being
borne in a Palanquin:
Softly, 0 softly we bear her along.
She hangs like a star in the dww 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.
(p. 3)
The v7ords "hangs", "springs", and "falls" have the
association of kinetic images.
"Coromandel Fishers" describes the scene of the
fishers rov;ing their boats on the blue waters of the sea:
But sweeter, 0 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.
(p. 7)
 316

There are beautiful visual images erived from the "bridal

robe", "wild bird's wing", "ocean's mien" and "funeral
pyre" of a tue wife in the poem "In Praise of Gulmohur
Blossoms";
The glimmering red of a bridal robe.
Rich red of a wild bird's wing?

Or,
The limpid clouds of the lustrous dawn
That colour the ocean's mien?

Or,
Or the rapturous light leaps to heaven
From a true wife's funeral pyre?

(p. 94)
"Indian Love Song" ha^ a vivid colour imagery in
the description of the scene of morning:
Lie still, 0 love, until the morning sows
Her tents of gold on fields of ivory.

(p. 16)
There is a kinetic image in "sows". "Cradle-Song"
describes how
The wild fire-flies
Dance through the fairy neem;

(p. 17)
In "A Song in Spring" fireflies are shown weaving
aerial dances:
 317

Fireflies weaving aerial dances

In fragile rhythms of flickering gold.
(p. 88)
These lines have both visual and kinetic images.
In "The Joy of the Springtime" we see "The dance of the
dew on the wings of a moonbeam". (p.89)

In "Leili" (a Persian word for the night), Sarojini

presents an impressiv42 visual imagery dravm from the religious
source. Night is personified and enshrined in the forest
temple. The entire forest makes a temple where winds are
seen dancing and swooning at the holy feet of night, the
atmosphere created lends a sublime holiness to the night,
the highly praised image of the moon shining as "a caste-
mark" on the brow of heaven is a rare achievement in
itself:

A caste-mark on the azure brows of Heaven,

The golden moon burns a 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 license-offering.
(p. 31)
There is an auditory image in the line "Hush in the silence
mystic voices sing".
Equally impressive is the image of India as "a
bride high-mated with the spheres":
 318

And, like a bride high-mated with the spheres,

Beget, new glories from thine ageless womb.
(p. 58)
Besides these visual images we get a rich feast of
auditory, olfactory, gustatory and tactile images in
Sarojini's verses. There are auditory images in the lines
of "Coromandel Fishers":
Rise, brothers, rise, the wakening skies pray to
the morning light
(p. 6)
Or, of "The Snake-Charmer":
Whither dost thou hide from the magic of my flute-
call?
Or,
Whither dost thou loiter, by what murmuring
hollows.
(p. 8)
Or or "Village Song":
Far sweeter sound the forest-notes where forest-
streams are falling.
(p. 12)
Or or "Indian Love Song":
Like a serpent to the calling voices of flutes",
Glides my heart into thy fingers, 0 my love!
(p. 16)
 319

Or "Indian Dancers":
0 wild and entrancing the strain of keen music that
cleaveth the stars like a wail of desire.
Or
And exquisite, subtle and slow are the tinkle and
tread of their rhythmical, slumber-soft feet.
(p. 39)
Or of "The Dance of Love":
The music sighs and slumbers.
It stirs and sleeps again ...
Hush, it wakes and weeps and murmurs
Like a woman's heart in pain;
Now it laughs and calls and coaxes.
Like a lover in the night,
Now it pants with sudden longing.
Now it sobs with spent delight.
(p. 73)
Or of "June Sunset":
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 pipal-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 beat of a mystic tune,
And the faint stars gleam in the eastern sky
To herald a rising moon.
(pp. 192-193)
 320

Or of "A Persian Lute Song":

I pray you singing girls refrain
From music and be mute,
0 laughing flute-player restrain
The rapture of your flute,
And watch with me, not yet hath rung
The golden hour, not yet
Comes he for whom the lutes are strung
For v;hom the feast is set.
(The Feather of the Dawn, p. 11)

The poem "Street Cries" has impressive auditory images in

"when dawn's first cymbals beat upon the sky", or "And in
dim shelters koels hush their notes", and "When lutes are
strung and fragrant torches lit" (p. 57).

The olfactory images are found in "the scent of

mango grove" ("Coromandel Fishers", p. 6 ) ; "Like the
perfume in the petals of a rose" ("Indian Love-Song", p.
16); "In what moonlight-tangled meshes of perfume" ("The
Snake-Charmer", p. 8 ) ; "Pervade me like a musky scent"
("Humayun to Zubeida", p. 22); "Like odours of cinnamon,
sandal and clove" ("Alabaster", p. 24); "The Winds are
drunk with the odorous breath/Of henna, sarisha, and neea"
("In a Time of Flowers", p. 92); and:
0 radiant blossoms that fling
Your rich, voluptuous, magical perfume
To ravish the winds of spring.
("Champak Blossoms", p. 98)
 321

There are tactile images of the sense of touch in

"a basil-wreath to twine among my tresses", or "a jewelled
clasp of shining gold to bind around my sleeve", or "the
hooded hawk upon my hand that flutters" ("A Rajput Love
Song", p. 7 ) ; "That hath foregone the kisses of the
spring" ("Vasant Panchami", p. 91); "You have crushed my
life like broken grain", or "trod into dust" my flowering
soul ("Invincible", p. 174); "crushed between my lips the
burning petals of rose" ("Ecstasy", p. 212); "Kiss the
shadow of love's passing feet" ("The Offering", p. 211);
"With your foot-prints, on my breast" ("The Feast", p.
212); "My heart be your tent and your pillow of rest/And a
place of repose for your feet" ("The Lute-Song", p. 214);
and
Forgive me the sin of my hands...
Perchance they were bold over much
In their tremulous longing to touch
Your beautiful flesh, to caress.
To Clasp you, 0 Love, and to bless
With gifts as uncounted as sands -
0 pardon the sin of my hand!
("The Sins of Love", p. 215)

There are sensuous qustatory images in "Drink deep

of the hush of the hyacinth heavens that glimm around them
in fountains of light", or "The poppies of lips that are
opiate-sweet" ("Indian Dancers", p. 39); "the faint.
 322

thirsting blood in languid throats craves liquid succour

from the cruel heat", or "lovers sit drinking together of
life's poignant sweet ("Street Cries", p. 57); "golden
pitchers for fairywine" ("Golden Cassia", p. 96); "rich
fruit of all Time's harvesting2 ("The Vision of Love", p.
217); and
But sweeter madness drives my soul to swift and
sweeter doom.
For I have drunk the deep, delivious nectar of Your
breath!
("Ecstasy", p. 213)
All these images reveal Sarojini's high poetic sensibility
and imagination and her delight in the objects of beauty.

Symbolism in Sarojini:
Saymbolism in Sarojini's poetry is not only the
product of her rare creative imagination but also the
result of the influence of her great admirer Arthur Symons
who was associated with the Symbolist Movement in the
English poetry of the eighteen ninetees and also wrote his
epoch-making critical book.

The Symbolist Movement in Literature: The symbols employed

by her are both traditional and personal. Though most of
her symbols are conventional or stock symbols, she, at
 323

times, uses a set of private symbols to express her

personal vision. Her personal symbols are, however, not
obscure like those of Blake and Yeats.

Some of Sarojini's poems- "The Lotus", "Pearl",

"Indian VJeavers", and "The Flute Player of Brindaban" -
are completely symbolic. The whole series of poems,
entitled "The Temple: A Pilgrimage of Love", is
symbolical. Temple stands for a symbol of both human and
spiritual love. Its three parts, "The Gate of Delight",
"The Path of Tears", and "The Sanctuary", Hindu
structure. The Torana (entrance v;ay), prodakshina-patha
(Circuraambulatory passage way) and the garbha-griha (inner
sanctuary). The twenty four poems, eight in each part,
symbolize twenty four pillars or arches of a temple. The
pilgrim lover reaches the sanctuary or attains the Cosnic
Centre by trials and suffering.

In the poem "The Lotus", the lotus stands for a

mystic lotus symbolizing Mahatma Gandhi whose name no
where appears in the body of the poem. The words "To M.K.
Gandhi" are there only in a parenthesis added to the
title. The symbol runs through the poem and helps the poet
to elevate the Mahatma's character to a supreme height.
The octave of the sonnet is an objective description of
the lotus, but with such symbolic over-tones a's we could
 324

find in it a description of Mahatma Gandhi as well. Every

epithet helps us to understand the subject - both the
lotus and Gandhi -, and appropriately suggests the implied
mythology and history: "sacred and subime" (we know how
lotus is associated with the sacred gods, Lord Vishnu,
Lakshmi and Brahma); "grace inviolate" (unaffected by
worldly temptations and fears); "transient storms" (great
difficulties and obstacles faced by Gandhi); "Deep-rooted
in the waters of the time" (The mythological implication
is the first v;aters out of which creation sprang up; the
historical implication is that Gandhi is deep-rooted in
the cultural wisdom and heritage of the country); "a
far-off clime" (a foreign country, Britain, v^hich would
loose its hordes on the Mahatma). While "The ageless
beauty born of Brahma's breath" suggests that the lotus is
Brahma's flower, "Coeval with the Lords of Life and Death"
conveys the idea of the lotus being born and coexistent
with Brahma and Vishnu and Gandhi with the divine wisdon.
Thus the ancient symbol of myriad petalled lotus
associated with Brahma, Vishnu, Lakshmi and Buddha, has
been very imaginatively employed for highlighting Mahatia
Gandhi's purity and spiritual powers.

In "The Pearl", the pearl symbolizes a human bei3:g

whose real talents shine and scatter their brilliance only
 325

when they were exposed to the wide world. Like a pearl

which holds the bright colours of the sun, shines in its
full glory only when it comes out of its shell, similarly
an individual acquires reputation and recognition only
when he rises above his narrow, private, particular self
and identifies himself with the wider and richer life of
the family, the community, the State and the common
brotherhood of humanity. Therefore it is nothing but the
barren pride.
Of cold, unfruitful freedom that belies
The inmost secret of fine liberty.
That makes the pearl
Return unblest into the primal sea.

(p. 175)
In "Indian Weavers", its three stanzas describing
the three hours of a day in the life of the Indian weaver
suggest symbolically the journey of life from birth to
death.The gay and colourful robes which the weavers weave
at break of day for a new born child symbolise the first
stage of man's life which is full of hopes and promises.
The weavers here stand for Brahma, the god of birth or
creation, weaving the yam of life: "Blue as the wing of
a halcyon wild/VJe weave the robes of a new born child"
(p.4). "Blue stands for innocence and "halcyon", a bird
which breeds on the flowing water, stands as the symbol
 326

of creation. The second stanza suggests symbolically the

gaiety and adventure associated with youth. The weavers
weaving "marriage veils" at fall of night, stand for
Vishnu, the god of magnificence of life. The colourful
peacock plumes suggest the colour and joy one experiences
in youth. The third stanza represents symbolically the

end of life's journey. The weavers who weave in "The

moonlight chill" a "dead man's funeral shroud", stand for
Shiva, the god of destruction. The "moonlight chill" and
"white" colour suggest appropriately death.

"The Flute Player of Brindaban" symbolizes the

Infinite that calls every human soul and "turns every
human heart away from the mortal cares and attachments"
(p. 161). The soul craves for the complete absorption in
the Infinite. Radha symbolizing human soul is restless to
follow the "magical call" of Lord Krishna's flute:
Foresaking all;
The earthly loves and worldly lures
That held my life in thrall,
And follow, follow, answering
The magic flute-call.
(p. 161)
Several of Sarojini's other poems are replete with
symbolic images. In "The Gipsy Girl", the gipsy acquires
 327

a symbolic significance towards the close of the poem,

because of her hidden links with times immemorial:

Time's river winds foaming centuries

In 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.
(p. 50)
The serpents in "The Festival of Serpents", being
"the seers and symbols of the ancient silence", fill our
hearts with a sense of mystery. They acquire symbolic
significance which lends the poem a strange weird beauty:
Swift are ye as streams and soundless as the dewfall
Subtle as the lightning and splendid as the sun;
Seers are ye and symbols of the ancient silence,
VJhere life and death and sorrow and ecstasy are one,
(p. Ill)

The broken wing in the poem "The Broken Wing",

symbolizes, the failing poetic fervour of the poet. The
poem, however, reveals her unfaltering courage and
determination in the face of great sufferings. She may
lose bodily strength but her spirit is undaunted:
Behold! I rise to meet the destined spring
And scale the stars upon my broken wing!
(p. 145)
 328

The winds in Sarojini's nature poems often acquire

symbolic significance. In "A Song in Spring", she
visualizes the winds as types of the wise, experienced

travellers who have accumulated a lot of worldly wisdom.

Since they wander everywhere, they know the mystery of
love, life and death. The west winds have:

Spied on Love's old and changeless secret.

And the changing sorrow of human souls.
They have tarried with Death in her parleying placces.
And issued the word of her high decree,
Their wings have winnowed the garnered sunlight.
Their lips have tasted the purple sea.
(p. 88)
In "Leili", the "mystic voices" signing and "the winds
dancing and swooning at the holy feet of Night" have

symbolic overtones:
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)
Cousins who is highly impressed by the symbolism of winds
as devotees, remarks: "The symbolism in Mrs. Naidu's poem
of the dancing winds as devotees in the temple of nature
must surely stand among the fine things of
1
literature".

1. Cousins, p. 265.
 329

Sarojini's images - sensuous and symbolic - reveal

that she like a great poet is to a very great extent an
explorer in realms of thought and feeling hitherto
untrodden. By some sublime power within herself she sees
through flashes of imaginative insight "into the life of

things", and is able to shov; their relation to the grand

principles which control all thought and being. She
extends the bounds of her own experience and then ours
through the fusing alembic of our common emotional
nature, until we also see into the life of things.

Sarojini's Art, Diction and Versification:

Sarojini is a keenly sensitive poet in the

Romantic tradition. For her poetry is purely a "musical
thought", the concrete and artistic expression of the
human mind in emotional and rhythmic language. She is a
lyric poet par excellence among the Indian English poets.
All of her verses have rare emotional intensity being
"spontaneous overflow of pov/erful feeling" - of joy.
sorrow, despair, fervour and exultation. Like a true
lyricist she uses a diction which has a magical and
haunting cadence and loveliness. Some of her verses are
in the form of songs with rich verbal melody and can
easily be set to music. She attains a lyrical perfection
 330

because in giving expression to her deepest feelings, she

strikes a chord which sets all our hearts vibrating.

Sarojioni has made use of almost all lyric form

- sonnet, ode, elegy and folk poems. Her sonnets like,
"Love and Death" (p. 72), "Death and Life" (p. 119),
"Imperial Delhi" (p. 156),"In Salutation To My Father's
Spirit" (p. 160) and "The Lotus" (p. 167), though
expression of deep emotions, have a classical control, a
sense of balance and some kind of high seriousness that
make them worthy sonnets. They are all in Italian form
with an octave and sestet; while the rhyme scheme of the
octave is invariably: a b b,. a a b b a, of the sestet
varies and takes different forms as c c d , e e d; c d c,
d f f ; c c d , e e d ; and c d c, e d e. Among her odes we
have "Ode to H.H. The Nizam of Hyderabad", To the God of
Pain" and "To a Buddha Seated on a Lotus". They are
exalted in subject matter, and elevated in tone and
style. They are full of deep and sincere emotion but
their expression is consciously elaborate, impressive,
and diffuse. Sarojini has written moving elegies on the
death of the Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Mahbub Ali Khan, her
political mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and Umar Sobhani,
a rich philanthropist of Bombay. These are entitled
respectively "Ya Mahbub!", "Gokhale" and "Umar"(The
 331

(•Feather of the Dawn). These are touching poems o£

personal loss and are written in simple language. They
are confined to their objects of mourning, their death
being the inspiration and sole theme. The poet here gives
an expression only to his deep and sincere feelings of
lamentation without indulging in discursive reflections.

Sarojini has written folk poems without taking

recourse to the objective narration or using the ballad
measure. Most of these folk songs - "Palanquin - Bearers"
"Wandering Singers", "Indian Weavers", "Coromandel
Fishers", "The Snake-Charmer", "Corn-Grinders", "Harvest
Hymn", "Craddle-Song", "Village Song", "Bangle Sellers",
"Spinning Song", etc. - are written to suit the Indian
tunes. The rhythms, metres, and stanza forms vary
according to the moods of the singers. The metrical
inventiveness of Sarojini is best seen in these poems
because she uses in them impressive refrains and weaves
native words and phrases to convey Indian colour and
atmosphere.

One cannot miss in Sarojini's poetry her ease in

the English language, her sense of the sounds of English
words and her mastery over the metrical system of English
poetry. Although her life spans across the late
Victorian, Decadent, Edwardian and Georgian and the
 332

emerging Hulme-Eliot- Pound periods of English poetry,

she being brought up in romantic tradition and fed solely
on the ornate poetry of the East and the West, remains
typically romantic in her taste and temperament,
sensibility and art. Sarojini does not try poetry after
the modern fashion nor does she approve of its lack of
passion. Its use of free verse, its terse, dry and lean
diction and its emphasis on harsh truth and intellectual
content do not suit her imaginative and romantic
temperament. Sensuous and aesthetic perceptions are the
raw material on which she builds the edifice of her
poetry of beauty and romance. She found the echoes of the
romantic tradition in the Rhymer club coterie with whom
she had close contacts and like them stuck in her poetry
to verbal felicity, metrical discipline and musical
texture.

Sarojini is' a great artist in the use of words.

She believes with Mallarme that poetry is written with

words and not ideas, she has a miraculous power of

communicating her responses to any kind of sense
impression in words which are surcharged with feelings.
Armando Menezes emphasizes the rich use of evocative and
suggestive words in Sarojini's poetry:
 333

She had a woman's love for words. They were not,

to her, just convenient instruments of expression,
they were things: precious, lovely things, like
jewels. She rejoices in pollysyllables that roll
and rumble, or rattle like long burnished swords:
the phrases like 'lovely stalactile of dream'; or
'in the long dread, incalculable hour'".

Sarojini's diction is greatly influenced by the romantic

vocabulary of the early nineteenth century and is highly
strung and sophisticated. It is, however, wrong to
criticize it as artificial for it is very communicative
and has the compelling utterance of emotion.

Sarojini has tremendous power of phrase-making.

She is artist in the use of words and phrases aglow with

fire and meaning. She coins new words with the help of
epithet and verb or epithet and noun combinations. VJe
have thus highly evocative words like "laughter-bound",
"sorrow-free", "laughter-lighted", "jewel-girl", "sandal-
scented", "moonlight-tangled", "rose-scented", "dawn-
uncoloured", "thought-worn", "wind-blown",
"wind-inwoven", "love-garnered", "flame-carven", "hermit
memories", "lotus-throne", and "parrot-plume". Equally
suggestive and pictorial are phrases like "the wakening
skies", "The leaping wealth of the tide", "The kiss of
the spray", "The dance of the wild foam's glee" (p. 7),
 334

"The moonlight tangled meshes of perfume", "Golden-

vested maidens", "The petals of delight","the silver-
breasted moonbeam of desire" (p. 8 ) , "koel-haunted river
isles", "sandal-scented leisure" (p. 11), "ecstasy of
starry silence" (p. 36), "hopes up-leaping like the light
of dawn" (p. 37),"a wail of desire", "gem-tangled hair"
(p. 39), "silver tears of sorrowZ (p. 199), "lyric
bloom", "melodious leaves" (p. 203), "echoing boughs",
and "blossoming hopes unharvested" (p. 49). there are
many such pictorial phrases scattered all over Sarojini's
poems. Some of these phrases are rich in alliterations:
"Fair and frail and fluttering leaves", "fairy fancies",
"laughted", "tangles of my tresses", "the dear dreams
that are dead", "fashion a funeral pyre", "the heavenward
hunger", and "glimmering ghosts".

Sarojini often uses vernacular words which though

uncommon in poetry, lend native flavour to her verses and
add to their rhythmic melo y. It is surprising that
Lotika Basu is critical of the use of these native words:
"The artificiality of Mrs. Naidu's poems is increased by
the repetition of vernacular words which have no meaning
and association for the English reader and seem only
something fantastic - words in fact, which even in their
native language have no poetic value, such as 'Ya' Allah!
 335

'Ya Allah! or 'Ram re Ram'!" These vernacular words

are, however, so much compressed with meaning and fit so
well in the context of the poem that they never look
superfluous or meaningless. They have religious
associations to the Indian mind and they capture
beautifully the subtle native passion.

Sarojini has composed in various stanza forms and

there is hardly any metrical measure accepted in English
poetry which she has not successfully practised - iambic,
trochaic, anapaestic, dactyle, or their permissible
combinations. In "Cradle Song", Sarojini uses iambic

measure for melodious effect;

From graves of spice.
O'er fields of rice.
Athwart the lotus stream
I bring for you
Aglint with dew
A little lovely dream.
(p. 17)

In "Song of Radha, the Milkmaid", she combines iambic

with anapaestic measure:

1. Lotika Basu, Indian tJriters of English Verse

(Calcutta, University ot Calcutta, 1933), p. 94.
 336

I carried my gifts to the Mathura shrine...

How brightly the torches were glowing!...
I folded my hands at the altars to pray
"0 shining ones guard us by night and by day".
And loudly the conch shells were blowing,
But my heart was so lost in your worship Beloved
They were wroth when I cried without knowing
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
(p. 113)
In the poem "To My Children", we get a pure
trochaic measure, a rhyming eight-line stanza in

trimetre:
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 art and to my nation.
Sun of Victory, may you be
Sun of song and liberty.
(p. 51)
In "Wandering Singers", Sarojini uses anapaestic
measure, lines beginning with an iamb, followed by three
anapaests:
Our lays are of cities whose lustre is shed.
The laughter and beauty of women long dead;
 337

The sword of old battles, the crown of old kings.

And happy and simple and sorrowful things,
(p. 4)
Sarojini uses even dactyle measure successfully,
though it is rarely used in English poetry:
Full are my pitchers and far to carry,
Lone is the way and long,
Why, 0 why was tempted to tarry
Lured by the boatmen's song?
("Village Song", p. 103)
In addition to the successful use of these English
metrical measure, Sarojini has also experimented
skilfully with native folk-tunes, village tunes and bazar
tunes in her poems. In "Palanquin Bearers" she reproduces
in words the swingy movement and the accompanying music
of the palanquin bearers:
Lightly, 0 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, 0 gaily we glide and we sing,
We bear her along like a pearl on a string.
(p.3)
In "Village Songs" she captures magic of rural atmosphere
by dramatic monologue of a village maiden who is delayed
in returning to her house. The rhythmic movement of the
refrain "Ram re Ram! I shall die" adds to the musical
charm of the song;
 338

My brother will murmur, "Why doth she linger"

My mother will wait and weep,
Saying, "0 safe may the great gods bring her.
The Jamuna's waters are deep"...
The Jamuna's waters rush by so quickly,
The shadows of evening gather so thickly,
Like black birds in the sky....
.0! if the storm breaks, what will betide me?
Safe from the lightning where shall I hide me?
Unless Thou succour my footsteps and guide me.
Ram re Ram! I shall die.
(p. 103)
In the poem, "In The Bazar of Hyderabad", Sarojini
recreates the scene of an Indian bazar by reproducing its
tunes in a dramatic manner:
What do you weigh, 0 ye vendors?
Saffron and lentil and rice.
VJhat do you grind, 0 ye maidens?
Sandalwood, henna and spice?
VJhat do you call, 0 ye pedlars?
Chessmen and ivory dice.
(p. 106)
Equally impressive is Sarojini's use of the Bengali
metre in "Slumber Song for Sunalini":
Sweet, the saints shall bless thee...
Hush, mine arms caress thee.
Hush, my heart doth press thee, sleep.
Till the red dawn dances
 339

Breaking thy soft trances,

Sleep, my Sunalini sleep!
(p. 104)
Commenting on the use of metrical rhythms in
Sarojini's verses for musical effects, Prof. Rameshwar
Gupta aptly remarks: "It is enough to show that if
Sarojini had genius, it was a genius for verbal rhythm.
The very tissues, nerves and muscles of her body would
sometimes go into motion to get the rhythm that rested in
her being, and then it would manifest itself in some
melodious articulation. English poets who show such
variety of rhythmic patterns and tunes are not many. That
is Sarojini's contribution to English poetry."

Her Achievement:

Whatever our estimate of Sarojini's contribution

to Indian English poetry, it will generally be agreed
that she was 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, and to which she directed her
best early efforts. This keen poetic sensibility and her

1. Rameshwar Gupta, p. 125.

 340

early brilliant promise could not find their mature

fulfilment because she had to give up composing verses
after four volumes of poems owing to her deep involvement
in the national struggle for independence. She could not,
therefore, realize her ambition to be a great poet. The
rapture of song, however, always remained with her.

Sarojini was conscious of her limitations and was

perhaps a better critic of her own poetry than anyone
else. She remarked very frankly "My poor casual little
poems seem to be less than beautiful - I mean - that
1
final enduring beauty that I desire."

She also confessed with disarming humility:

I am not a poet really. I have the vision and

desire but not the voice. If I could write just
one poem full of beauty and spirit of greatness, I
should be exultantly silent for ever; but I sing
just as the birds do, and my • songs are as
2
ephemeral.

In a letter to Romesh Chandra Dutt in March, 1906, which

she wrote on receiving a copy of his Ramayana and
Mahabharata in English verse, she again expressed her own
sense of inadequacy:

1. Arthur Symons, p. 10.

2. Ibid.
 341

I realise what much finer, more lasting, more

fruitful achievement it is to have made accessible
to the world, in this splendid and noble version,
the proudest epics of the centuries, than the
tinkling little verses such as I had the audacity
it seems to me so now - to send you.

Though Sarojini could not scale great heights and

touch the summit in her poetry, yet one would not miss in
whatever she wrote her inner consistency of vision as
well as an extraordinary grasp of the reality of human
emotion and aspiration. Having been brought up in
romantic tradition of poetry she remained through and
through a lyricist who gave vent to her intense and
authentic emotional experiences in melodious verses. The
spontaneous outpouring of feeling rather than an

intellectual exercise continued to be her mode, and

sensuous and aesthetic perceptions rather than thought,
the contents of her poetry. Nissim Ezekiel notes with
great dissatisfaction: "It was Sarojini's ill-luck that
she wrote at a time when English poetry had touched the
rock bottom of sentimentality and technical poverty. By
the time it recovered its health, she had entered
politics, abandoning the possibility of poetic

1. Cited by Padmani Sen Gupta in Sarojini Naidu (Bombay:

Asia Publishing House, 1966), p. 61.
 342

development and maturity." It is, however, doubtful that

even if she had continued to write without taking to
politics, she would have ever developed into the Hulme-
Pound-Eliot tradition of poetry. Her love for beauty and
romance would have never led her to write in new poetic
idiom with its emphasis on intellectual content and
irony.

In its final assessment Sarojini's poetry with its

transparent sincerity of love for the people and

landscape of India, its lyrical spontaneity and

melody, its beautiful images and metaphors embodying
the rich cadence and rhythm of Indian life, still remains
unrivalled in the Indian English poetry in its own mode.
Sri Aurobindo, the profound judge of life and literature,
has correctly remarked that Sarojini had, "qualities
which make her best
work exquisite, unique and
2
unchallenged in its own kind."

1. Osmania Journal of English Studies Sarojini Naidu

special Number, p, 28. "
2. Ibid.