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.
“Saith Dasa, Christ, upon Thy pallet-bed
Grant me a little space to lay my head.”
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.