Sarojini Naidu

THE COROMANDEL FISHERST

Rise, brothers, rise; the wakening skiespray to the morning light,  The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawnlike a child that has cried all night.  Come, let us gather our nets from the shore andset our catamarans free,  To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, forwe are the kings of the sea! 

No longer delay, let us hasten away in thetrack of the sea gull's call,  The sea is our mother, the cloud is ourbrother, the waves are our comrades all.  What though we toss at the fall of the sunwhere the hand of the sea-god drives?  He who holds the storm by the hair, will hidein his breast our lives. 

TRANSIENCE

        Nay, do not grieve tho' life be full ofsadness, 
Dawn will not veil her spleandor for your grief, 
Nor spring deny their bright, appointed beauty 
 To lotus blossom and ashoka leaf. 

 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.

Nay, do not weep; new hopes, new dreams, new faces,      
Theunspent joy of all the unborn years, 
 Willprove your heart a traitor to its sorrow, 
 Andmake your eyes unfaithful to their tears.

THE SOUL'S PRAYER

In childhood's pride I said to Thee: 
"O Thou, who mad'st me of Thy breath, 
Speak, Master, and reveal to me 
 Thine inmost laws of life and death. 

   "Give me to drink each joy and pain 
      Which Thine eternal hand can mete, 
   For my insatiate soul can drain 
    Earth's utmost bitter, utmost sweet. 

"Spare me no bliss, no pang of strife, 
Withhold no gift or grief I crave, 
 The intricate lore of love and life 
 And mystic knowledge of the grave." 

 Lord, Thou didst answer stern and low: 
"Child, I will hearken to thy prayer, 
 And thy unconquered soul shall know 
 All passionate rapture and despair. 

"Thou shalt drink deep of joy and fame,
 And love shall burn thee like a fire, 
 And pain shall cleanse thee like a flame, 
To purge the dross from thy desire. 

"So shall thy chastened spirit yearn 
 To seek from its blind prayer release, 
And spent and pardoned, sue to learn 
The simple secret of My peace. 

I, bending from my sevenfold height,
Willteach thee of My quickening grace, 
Lifeis a prism of My light,
AndDeath the shadow of My face." 

IN SALUTATION TO THE ETERNAL PEACE

Men say the world is full of fear andhate, 
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. 

What care I for the world's desire and pride, 
 Who know the silver wings that gleam and glide, 
 The homing pigeons of Thine eventide? 

 What care I for the world's loud weariness, 
Who dream in twilight granaries Thou dost bless 
 With delicate sheaves of mellow silences? 

 Say, shall I heed dull presages of doom, 
Or dread the rumoured loneliness and gloom, 
The mute and mythic terror of the tomb?

For my glad heart is drunk and drenched with Thee, 
Oinmost wind of living ecstasy! 
   Ointimate essence of eternity!