Queen Gulanaar

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."

 

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."

 

II

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 Gulnsar'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."

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?

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.

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 koïls 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.

 Courtesy Google Images 

In the Arya Sri Aurobindo reviewed Harindranath Chattopadhyaya’s book of poems entitled The Feast of Youth as follows: “This is the first published book of a young poet whose name has recently and suddenly emerged under unusually favourable auspices. English poetry written by  an Indian writer who uses the foreign medium as if it were his mother-tongue, with a spontaneous ease, power and beauty, the author a brother of the famous poetess Sarojini Naidu, one of a family which promises to be as remarkable as the Tagores by its possession of culture, talent and genius, challenging attention and sympathy by his combination of extreme youth and a high and early brilliance and already showing in his work, even though still  immature, magnificent performance as well as a promise which makes it difficult to put any limits to the heights he may attain,—the book at once attracts interest and has come into immediate prominence amidst general appreciation and admiration. We have had already in the same field of achievement in Sarojini Naidu's poetry qualities which make her best work exquisite, unique and unmatchable in its kind. The same qualities are not to be found in this book, but it shows other high gifts which, when brought to perfection, must find an equal pitch with a greater scope. Here perhaps are the beginnings of a supreme utterance of the Indian soul in the rhythms of the English tongue. ...”

 

Then in the course of his talks with the attendant disciples here is what he said about Sarojini Naidu:

 

9 January 1939 Evening Talks

Disciple: There have been Indian writers of English poetry. What do you think of them?

Sri Aurobindo: They do write poetry in English and it may even be successful, but it is not the real man who is speaking. Very few can do it in another language. Sarojini Naidu had a small range but had the Capacity to express herself.

Disciple: The general impression is that poetry is not in vogue in England, or perhaps anywhere else.

Sri Aurobindo: It is true; poetry is not read in England to­day. Somebody sent my poems to a publisher who gave them to his reader. He said: "They are remarkable poems and have a new element in them. But I don't advise their publication. If the writer has written any­thing in prose it is better to publish it first and then the poems may go."

Disciple: Harin's poems were sent to Masefield but got only lukewarm praise from him. He said they were "interesting".

Sri Aurobindo: Why were they sent to Masefield?

 

27 February 1936 Nirodbaran’s Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

Gosse told Sarojini Naidu that she must write Indian poems in English—poems with an Indian tradition, feeling, way of expression, not reproduce the English mind and turn, if she wanted to do something great and original as a poet in the English tongue.