Her Poems Revealing a Spirit Crushed and Awed by Fate:
Sarojini is over- powered by a realization of the helplessness of herself and her kind before fate which brings sorrow to be followed by another. She had a great involvement in life. She had gone through gay and sad experiences in her life and longed to know the secret of life, death and love. In The Soul's Prayer, she requested God:
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| Element of Pessimism and optimism in Sarojini Naidu’s Poetry |
"Give me to drink each joy and pain
Which thine eternal hand can meet.
For my insatiate soul would drain
Earth's utmost bitter, utmost sweet.
Spare me no bliss, no pang of strife.
With hold no gift or grief I crave.
The intricate lore of love and life
And mystic knowledge of the grove."
Her Poems on Life and Death:
There are about two dozen poems on life and death written by Sarojini: Death and Life, The Hussain Sagar, The Faery Isle of Janjira, The Soul's Prayer, Transience, The Old Woman, In the Night, At Dawn, Solitude, A Challenge to Fate, In Salutation to the Eternal Peace, Guerdon, To the God of Pain, The Broken Wing, The Temple, The Imam Bara, A Song from Shiraz. Imperial Delhi. Memorial Verses, The Flute Player of Brindaban, Farewell, The Challenge. The Wandering Beggars, The Garden Vigil, The Lotus, Invincible, Three Sorrows of Life. The Poet to Death, To a Buddha Seated on A Lotus. These poems contain an interpretation of life and show the poetess' involvement with the mystery of existence.
Her Lamenting the Triumph of Death over Love:
In her sonnet on Love and Death, her mood is one of utter despair, she laments the triumph of Death over Love herein:
"Alas, my love was vain
E'en to annual one throe of destined pain,
Or by one heart-beat to prolong thy breath;
O love, alas, that love could not assuage
The burden of the human heritage,
Or save thee from the swift decrees of Death."
Her Exhibiting as Unwilling Priestess:
In To God of Pain, she exhibits herself as an unwilling priestess in the temple of God, completely spent and exhausted and craving only for release from His service.
Her Retreating like Hermit:
In Past and Future, the poetess, when confronted with the future, retreats like a hermit to her cell to expect, but she does not know what to expect:
"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."
Expressing Her Helplessness:
In another of her profoundly moving poem, To a Buddha Seated on A Lotus, she expresses her helplessness and that of the entire race of man at the chain of sorrows, which one after another, appear in life. In unravelling the secret of mystic rapture and peace, unknown to the world of man, which characterize Lord Buddha, seated on his Lotus-throne, she introduces in the poem as a contrast the sufferings and strifes, "strenuous lessons of defeat," the hope deferred, the futile strivings of the spirit, the unsatisfied hunger of the soul, which characterize life and human kind; she is puzzled and turns to the Buddha for a solution.
The Twilight View of Life:
Her vision of life as revealed in these poems is not highly optimistic nor is it pessimistic. It may be called the twilight view of life in which both sorrows and joys, strifes and successes, smiles and tears are interwoven. The joys of the present may be blighted by sufferings but the future has unknown joys in its womb. Life has its own enchantment and the poetess finds life worth living. The poetess resents Death's suggestion to redeem her from pain, renew her joy and issue her again 'enclosed in some renascent ecstasy.’ She implores Death in The Poet to Death to desist from laying her icy hands on her till she drinks life to the lees and the bloom of her youth is over, till all her blossoming hopes are fulfilled and till her songs are sung and all her tears are shed:
"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.”
Life and Death both Constituting the Mingled Web of Existence:
Sarojini is the poetess of life and love; equally she is the poetess of the challenge of suffering and pain and death of life which enables her to look straight into the eyes of death. Life and death both, she regards constitute the mingled web of existence. Life remains incomplete without a combination of both. The poetess is not afraid of death. She fondly asks:
"Shall my soul falter, or my body fear
Its poignant hour of bitter suffering!"
Her Revolting Against Death:
She is really ashamed to encounter death shame- facedly. She sets herself on to the unworthy task and duty of song and service to her country. When she has accomplished it, death does not hold any fear for her. She is pitied by death, but her heroic soul challenges it and she revolts against it and returns.
“The gentle pity shames mine ear.”
The Soul's Prayer expresses the twinship of life and death in its closing lines:
“Life is a prism of light
And Death is shadow of my peace.”
Inseparability of Life and Death:
Life and death are inseparably one and the poetess gains strength at an awareness of this fact to meet sorrows and suffering lightly. In her poem, Transience she depicts the momentariness of life's joys and sorrows:
"Nay, do not pine, tho' life be dark with trouble,
Time will not pause or tarry on his way.
To-day that seems so long, so strange so bitter,
Will soon be some forgotten yesterday."
Her Belief in Spiritual Values:
Her spirit is frail, serene and indomitable and she strongly believes in spiritual values. She calls upon her heart to rise and go forward, as in Solitude:
"Or perchance, we may gleam a far glimpse of the infinite
In whose glorious shadow all life is unfolded or furled,
Thro' th luminous hours are lotus of dawn shall reblossom
In petals of splendour to worship the Lord of the world."
Poetess' Staunch Determination and Unflagging Courage to Fight the Tyranny of Fate:
Fate may hurl untold sufferings on her but she will not cry with suppliant hands to fate. There is iron in her soul and she cannot bow down before cruel fate who will wreck in bitter malice. Fate may robe her of her sight, deprive her of her hearing, take from her the power of speech, cripple her with pain, make her completely decrepit and useless nothing, but it cannot take from her the joy-giving memories or imprison her triumphant mind. Fate may even do worse, but it cannot triumph over her:
"O fate, in vain you hanker to control
My frail, serene, indomitable soul."
Her Welcoming Pain as an Essential:
Death und Life strikes a more defiant, courageous note. She refuses to be afraid of suffering, she goes beyond and welcomes pain as an essential, even beneficial, part of life. Much can be achieved in spite of suffering, and in order that life may be led in all its fullness, it is necessary to undergo suffering and pain equally with the joys it extends, and that Life and Death are not mighty opposites, but two aspects of a single reality. Life is a challenge and reality which is to be faced as such in life:
“Till ye have battled with great gried and fears,
And borne the conflict of dream-shattering years,
Wounded with fierce desires and worn with strife,
Children, ye have not lived, for this is life.”
Life and Death, Two Sides of a Medal:
Life and Death are not opposites, but an indivisible whole. It is a struggle but heroic hearts do not falter. Death brings pain and may cow us down, but Hope rings her sweet note in every human ear and we rise again and again and girt ourselves for a new journey. For one who has experienced deeper roots of joy and sorrow, Death and the vast unknown beyond do not hold any fear. Pain, Death and mysterious known are, therefore, welcomed by her:
“Welcome O fiery pain!
My heart unscared, unstricken,
Drinks deep thy fervid rain,
My spirit-seeds to quicken.
Welcome, O tranquil Death!
Thou hast no ills to grieve me,
Who com’st with freedom’s breath
From sorrow to retrieve me.
Open, O vast unknown,
Thy sealed mysterious portal!
I go to seek my own,
Vision of love immortal.” —(Welcome)
Her Immense Love for Life:
Her vision of life and death is not of a metaphysician or a philosopher. In her poems of life and death we do not find the same artistic and symbolic perfection that distinguishes the poetry of Tagore and Aurobindo. What characterizes her poetry is her immense love for life:
“Men say the world is full of fear and hate,
And all life's ripening harvest fields await
The restless sickle of relentless fate.
But I, sweet soul, rejoice that I was born,
When from the climbing terraces of corn
I watch the golden orioles of thy morn.” —(In Salutation to the Eternal Peace)