Theme of Life and Death in Sarojini Naidu's Poetry

Theme of Life and Death in Sarojini Naidu's Poetry

One of the major themes of Sarojini's poetry is the challenge of suffering and pain and death to life. Even if, for the moment, we ignore poems into which death and sufferings enter but incidentally, there are well over a dozen others that are concerned wholly with this theme. Naturally the poet's attitude is not quite consistent, for as Wordsworth said "the many movements of a poet's mind" all seek to express themselves in the poet's work. They are essentially the works of a poet and not of a philosopher and so no coherent philosophy of life is to be expected. Accordingly, there is in Sarojini Naidu's poems the mood, for instance, of utter despair voiced in the sonnet Love and Death. Here she laments the triumph of Death over Love. In another poem, To the God of Pain, she sees herself as an unwilling priestess in the temple of the god. Exhausted and completely spent, she craves only for release from his service. In another fine lyric, Past and Future, faced with the future-the past having retreated like a hermit to his cell-she stands expectant but not knowing what to expect: 

“The new hath come and now the old retires: 

And so the past becomes a mountain-cell, 

Where lone, apart, old hermit-memories dwell 

In consecrated calm, forgotten yet 

Of the keen heart that hastens to forget 

Old longings in fulfilling new desires.”

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.” 

In varying degrees these poems reveal a spirit crushed and awed by Fate. A realization of the helplessness of herself and her kind before the wind of change, which blows across the ways of men and blows away one sorrow only to bring in another, enters also into the profoundly moving poem To a Buddha Seated on a Lotus. What mystic rapture, what peace, unknown to the world of men, she asks, is the secret of Lord Buddha, seated on his lotus throne? She recalls by way of contrast the sufferings and strife, "the strenuous lessons of defect", the hope deferred, the futile strivings of the spirit, the unsatisfied hunger of the soul, which are our common human destiny. Puzzled, she turns to the Buddha, and asks, 

“How shall we reach the great, unknown 

Nirvana of thy Lotus-throne?” 

However, this is not the dominant mood in Sarojini's poetry. is a poct of joy and optimism, not of sorrow and pessimism. The will to live and live on, despite the challenge of pain and death, is strong in her and this will to live forms the golden thread of unity in her poetry. This note is struck in the three poems, In the Forest, Transience and At Twilight. It is, one might say, a twilight mood: she is emerging from the gloom but is not yet out of the shadows. Thus, in the first of these poems, she goes into the forest to burn the dear dreams that are dead; but the burning is as much a beginning as an end. "Nay do not grieve tho' life be full of sadness" are the very first words of Transience. It is sorrow which is transient, and not life and its joys. Not only will nature not be sad because you are sad, but also time will not tarry: "today will soon be a forgotten yesterday". And so: 

“Nay, do not weep; new hopes, new dreams, new faces, 

The unspent joy of all the unborn years, 

Will prove your heart a traitor to its sorrow, 

And make your eyes unfaithful to their tears.” 

The recoil from despair and the initial despair are both stronger in At Twilight. Weary, the poet seeks kind Death at twilight; for hope cannot prevail, she feels where clamorous hate is rife. Just then a woman's body is being borne to "the blind, ultimate silence of the dead" ; and. 

“Quick with the sense of joys she hath forgone, 

Returned my soul to beckoning joys that wait, 

Laughter of children and the lyric dawn, 

And love's delight, profound and passionate.”

A like clinging to life in the face of death appears in the supplication called The Poet to Death. "Tarry awhile, O Death, I cannot die" she pleads. But a more defiant, a more courageous note; is struck in the sonnet, Death and Life. Says P.E. Dustoor, "The defiance of pain goes beyond a refusal to fear suffering. The war is, as it were, carried into the enemy's territory: the pain is accepted as essential, even beneficial: it is welcomed. It is not only that much can be achieved in spite of the suffering, it is rather that the fullness of living involves the experience of suffering and that, in the ultimate analysis, Life and Death are not mighty opposites, but two aspects of a single reality." This, more or less, is what we are meant to understand from the poems called Life, The Soul's Prayer and Invincible. Life begins by dismissing as an illusion the idea that,

“Life is a stately stalactite of dreams, 

Or carnival of careless joys.”

and concludes: 

“Till ye have battled with great grief and fears, 

And borne the conflict of dream-shattering years, 

Wounded with fierce desire and worn with strife, 

Children, ye have not lived: for this is life.” 

In The Soul's Prayer the poet craves for "Earth's utmost bitter, utmost sweet" and wishes to be spared no bliss, no pang of pain, and the prayer, says the Lord, shall be granted: her soul shall know all rapture and despair. Pain and suffering, so far from crushing the poet, humanize her, as we are told in Invincible. The same indomitable spirit animates A Challenge to Fate. But the attitude is more than defiant; it is openly scornful. Fate may deprive her of her sight, rob her of her hearing, take from her the power of speech, cripple her with pain, yet it cannot take her joy-giving memories from her or hold captive her triumphant mind. Fate may do its worst, but it cannot triumph over her: 

"Tho' you deny the hope of all my being, 

Betray my love, my sweetest dream destroy, 

Yet will I take my individual sorrow 

At the deep source of universal joy... 

O Fate, in vain you hanker to control 

My frail, serene, indomitable soul.” 

Finally, In Salutation to the Eternal Peace is a clear and courageous assertion of faith in life. It is Sarojini Naidu's Everlasting Yea to Life (P.E. Dustoor). She accepts life and is determined to live it out like W.B. Yeats, despite all its sorrow and suffering, pain and death. It is also to be noted that life for Sarojini is not a riddle to be solved but a miracle to be celebrated and sung. She is dazzled by its beauty, by its colours and by its magnificence. Her poetry leads the readers out of the murky atmosphere of doubt and gloom into the clear fresh air of life's elemental experience, and herein lies her perennial youthfulness. Life for her is not an obsession but a possession, not an experiment but an adventure. It is a movement through which we recognise the wonder, magnificence and splendour of the world. Life for her is a "little lovely dream", which makes all men kindred and all the world our home", as her wandering singers sing. In short, life for her is both a burning veil and a luminous web, a mystery to be adored and a glory to be celebrated. Death is not an extinction of life, but a gateway to new life. It makes union with the infinite possible, and so is to be welcomed. Sarojini is aware that time is destructive, and nothing can escape its ravages, but she is also aware that time is as well the agent of experience, growth and maturity. It is both creative and destructive, and it, too, is to be welcomed, for it is the only way to rejuvenation and new life. Despite an undercurrent of melancholy and pessimism, Sarojini's poetry is optimistic and forward looking-looking forward to the souls union with the eternal, the Infinite, and Time and Death are the means to this union.