Toru Dutt

“ Will hover around you, though it darken your way;
Love verses that spring from kind hearts like your own,
They are echoes from heaven, stray beams from the throne;
While I slumber in earth, whisper gently of me—
'His tune was old Virgil's, though far lower his key.
If the world never thought so, the reason is clear—
Impatient, it never deigned even to hear;
But the less it talks of him, the more we should raise
Around his dear name an incense of praise.
As his loved ones, we two should treasure his story,
As his loved ones, we two should give him his glory ”

“ Rode out together. The battle was done.
The dead strewed the field. Long sunk was the sun.
It seemed in the darkness a sound they heard,
A feeble moan, or some half-uttered word.
'Twas a Spaniard from the army in flight
Who had crawled to the road after the fight;
Shattered and livid, and more than half-dead,
Rattled his throat as quite faintly he said:—
'Water—water to drink, for pity's sake!
Oh—a drop of water my thirst to slake!'
And my father, moved at these words heart-wrung,
The gourd of rum at his saddle that hung
To the trooper handed, who sharp down sprung. ”

“ On moss-spread turf to rest awhile, poor thing!
Played with an insect, stripped of leaves a flower,
Or broke the new shoots summoned forth by spring.
And sang! The sun seemed to smile in her song!
Some scrap it was of popular melody;
Thus sings the linnet clear and loud and long,
Until its notes mount straight up to the sky.
O breath of lovely days! Mysterious strength
Of sunbeam warm, or blossom newly blown!
O joy to hear, to see, to feel at length
The charm divine by God on all things thrown!
In spring can any child a long time sob?
The blade of grass attracts it, or the leaf ”

“ Shoots forth a long, long streak of red intense;
Then, when no reeds, no waterlilies stir,
And birds commence their songs upon the fir
Far, far away, and glow-worms light their spark
Beneath the moon just rising in the dark;
Then, when the lake more deep, more sombre, shows
A sky beneath, dark-violet, where glows
The milky way, the splendour of each star,
And all that meets the gaze above, afar;
Like a bright silver vase 'mid diamonds strown,
With her head buried in her wings, alone,
She sleeps, between two firmaments dim-seen,
A queen of beauty, Nature's chosen queen. ”

“ As she said—'So thou fliest? The world grinds and it crushes,
And here, 'mid my workmen, is peace in the bushes.
'My treasures contemplate, as thou sitt'st by these rushes,
With art and at leisure, choose, choose the bright flowers;
Weave thy gay garland, and if the wind fiercely brushes
And, flinging clouds o'er the sun, destroys their dew-blushes,
From thy soul them besprinkle with flame and with showers,
And rays everlasting shall dart through the bowers.'
I tied ye up then, oh beloved and chaste flowers! ”

“ I place my hands on clouds with sombre forms,
And from their flanks wring out the latent storms.
Cities I bury in huge piles of sand,
Mountains o'erturn by winds at my command,
My feet ne'er tire when travelling through space,
At my nod rivers change their wonted place,
Ocean itself is silent at my voice,
I make thine Israel in his griefs rejoice.
When he requires new laws, or ease from pains,
I look up unto Thee. Thy Spirit deigns
To visit me; earth trembles to its source
And the sun starts affrighted from its course. ”

“ I long for human blood.
The pure blood of a woman must be shed.
Then shall your prayers be heard, and Rome be great.'
Thus spake the god,—and in that very time
Vanished the victim, in some way unknown,
And on the altar I,—I found myself
Stretched in its place, awaiting for the axe
Suspended. There I lay with blanching cheek,
Paler and paler as the minutes passed,
Until a pillar opening, out there came
A deadly serpent. Crawling, it advanced,
Drawing along the flags its glittering rings,
Proud of their rich resplendence, moving slow,
And slower still, as certain of its prey. ”

“ Bivouac, and tomb, and prison, Paris now is all.
Upright and straight before the universe
That has become a solitude, she stands
A sentinel, and surprised with weariness
From over-watching, slumbers; all is still.
Men, women, children, sobs passionate, bursts
Of triumphant laughter, cars, footsteps, quays,
Squares, crossways, and the river's sandy banks,
The thousand roofs whence issue murmurs low,
The murmurs of our dreams, the hope that says
I trust and I believe, the hunger, that I die,
The dark despair that knows not what it says,
All, all keep silence. O thou mighty crowd! ”

“ While the car of night's regent mounts slowly the sky
And illumines with silver the horizon's dull grey.
Hark! From the clear-outlined gothic steeple is borne
Solemn, solemn and sweet the rich sound of the bells;
On his pathway the traveller, weary and worn,
Stops to hear the loved concert as faintly it swells.
But a picture like this in my soul gives no birth
To transport or pleasure, for the halo has fled;
Like a wandering spirit I move on the earth,
And the sun of the living warms never the dead. ”

“ Alfred de Musset is a name too well known to require detailed notice in this place. He is one of the most popular poets of France, and his countrymen regard him as their Byron. In truth he possesses the spirit, the power, the wit, the brilliance, and the love of nature sometimes real and sometimes affected, which mark the writings of the English poet. Like Byron, he has no great depth of thought. Like Byron, he is sometimes eccentric and wild. His landscapes, like Byron's, seem to have been elaborated more often in a study, under the fumes of wine, than in the open air and under the blue sky. ”

“ Under an ardent sun, a traveller gay,
From a long pilgrimage I was coming back,
Twelve oxen large and slow, along the track
Dragged on the bark, in which I sheltered lay,
Now half asleep, now gazing at the day
Dying upon the red horizon's verge;
Light blent with shade, when in the twilight dim,
The landmarks sun-tipped of my journey's end
Appeared far off, as beacons that emerge
Over a sea, through vapours round that swim. ”

“ Give, oh give me thy sword;
Thy children save myself welter naked in blood,
And fishes devour them in the river's red flood;
Sole escaped of thy race from the foemen's fierce horde,
Let me wear the bright glave that none ever withstood.'
'My child, O my child, let us remain what we are,
Befits well the distaff a young maiden's fair hand;
Hence! Depart! Lo, on thy path the moon rises grand!
For a man is the sword, and the tumult of war,
But a fight foot to foot no woman may stand.'
'Angantyr! ”

“ Oh, strange illumined picture—scroll,
Born of some poet's idle mood!
We see thee daily with our eyes,
Nor deem we see thee all the while!
Love is the Wakening prince; the Soul
The Sleeping Beauty of the wood. ”

“ The granite wall girding this paradise peerless,
'Twas Charlemagne, 'twas Roland, the Paladin fearless
That notched it so deep and so far;
The last lopped the Valier, white and pyramidal,
In whirling his sword like the fire-sword of Michael
Against the proud Moors in the war.
The Moors have defeated the Goth kings at Xeres,
Their battalions mown down, like the ripe sheaves of Ceres,
Lie open on fields to the breeze. ”

“ Yea, live and die as atheist,—
O God, can any fate be worse?
The tyrants weigh us down with chains,
One woe succeeds another woe,
They close up heaven, they open hell below,
Nor care for God, nor heed our pains.
Who can withstand these men of blood?
They gnash on us like ghouls in saints' gore red,
They hurl us in the furnace dread,
Ah! that the Angel by us stood! ”

“ And they never were read—no, never, my dears,
Though prompt to raise smiles and melt into tears.
Ah! If your father had deigned to desire
The bubble called fame, with his heart and his lyre
How easy for him 'twere'—my children, I hope
You'll give all this nonsense freedom and scope,
And errors respect that your mother console,
For love is their source, and love is their goal. ”

“ The linnet should be my sole master in singing,
The fields verdant my book.
I would there make my choice as in a rich casket,
Each white bud a pearl,
And then deck my lyre with the gems in my basket,
If I were a young girl.
To the weeds in the furrows, drone their songs the cicalas,
To the clouds skylarks call,
To the hearths sing the crickets, ghost-bards to Valhallas,
There are poets for all. ”

“ Alfred de Vigny's 'Moise' is indeed a poem of great beauty, and may stand side by side with 'Tithonus.' 'It is not the true Moise—historically, perhaps,'—says his French critic, M. D'Aurevilly,—'the Moise Hebraic and Biblical, but what a beautiful human Moise it is. What a weariness in the man who has penetrated into everything! ”

“ Praised be the heavens, M. Soulary's verses do not flow as from a fountain. That which flows, flows, flows as from a fountain is only clear water, whereas his verses are impregnated with thought. There is not a word which has not its value,—and which has not been carefully and curiously searched until happily it has almost always been found. M. Soulary is a delicate carver. He is the Benvenuto Cellini of the sonnet. Is there in a carver or chaser the stuff to make a sculptor? ”

“ Whene'er they raised their eyes, the clouds piled black
Redoubled deafening, thunder, storm and wrack,
And sheets of lightning, blinding earth and air,
Made them bow down again in silent prayer.
The mountain top at last from clouds grew free,
But where was Moses? Him they could not see.
They wept his loss. To lead them to their land
Stepped to the front, the sceptre in his hand,
Joshua, God's new Elect, oppressed with care,
Pensive and pale, the weight of rule to bear. ”

“ Send chains and gibbets, famine, war and pest,
We shall adore and love Thee still.
In fears and ills of every sort
We shall obey Thee, long as reason lasts,
Well knowing that Thy roughest blasts
Lead us but quicker to the port.
May this our firm resolve and faith
Weak brethren help that wisdom lack,
The fallen raise, the wandering bring back,
The timid free from fear of death. ”

“ In their skilled hands, clear, loud, the harp-strings rung,
While to the King of kings the people sung.
And in God's presence, Moses took his place
Veiled in the cloud,—and saw Him face to face.
He said,—'O Lord! When shall my journey end?
Where wilt Thou further yet Thy servant send?
Must I live feared and lonely from my birth?
Oh! let me sleep the sleep of all the earth. ”

“ I blessed them while passing—let fools call it treason.
Your laurel too darkly on a sad forehead lowers,
The laurels resemble cypress-leaves in their gloom;
For me, I would die amid fragrance and flowers,
Strew roses, fresh roses on my bier and my tomb!
Bends my head: 'tis from age, like a low whistling reed
It pines for free air and the welkin with reason.
Immortal!—I?—Chut! Nonsense! Death went by indeed,
Pray point out my house—'twill be friendship, not treason. ”

“ What a rapture it was, such a vision to hail!
She was lovely indeed—and what was her crown?
A hope vague and soft that embellished each day;
Love to perfect her seemed loth to come down,—
Peace!—There's her hearse passing by on its way. ”

“ Is seated alone,—as the king of the place.
Sole, weak and helpless;—unwatched by its mother!
The rock and the sea seem to fight with each other;
If they wished to destroy this child of the isles,
The mount has just to loose a bit of its stone,
The sea to urge forward a breaker alone,
To crush or to whelm—but the child only smiles.
In truth, the high rock that seems heaven to invade
Leans with affection, leans to give him some shade,
And shield him from winds ”

“ The age flows like a river—on, on, and alas!
It bears on its course, like dead sea-weeds, a mass
Of names soiled with blood, broken vows, wishes vain,
And garlands all torn, that shall bloom not again.
Go, my soul; soar above the world and the crowd,
Bathe in blue ether, like a bird free and proud ”

“ Which shows each time it comes a gleam—
A something sweet and blest—
A dream of which heaven is the pole,
A dream that mingles with the soul,
I fain of it would make the goal
Where thy mind should rest. ”

“ Who fliest the talk of our logicians wise,
And sports, and rich-decked feasts, and beauty's eyes,
What dost thou, night and day, along the shore!
I wait. For what! Grand is that hungry roar
Of storm-vexed ocean as it earth defies,
But grander are these histories. They are lies,
And wasted hours no penance can restore. ”

“ High-born and lovely, she looks down on all men;
But the herdsman cares little for her, or her birth,
He loves a sweet girl in the village hard by,
Her figure is graceful, and dark is her eye,
And her heart is the tenderest of any on earth. ”

“ A wild steed, with the lightnings in her glance,—
Free—free, she owned nor king nor conqueror.
No hand had ever touched her. None could dare
With insult or with outrage wound her pride;
Upon her flanks no housings would she bear;
Untameable, the nations she defied.
A virgin skin; thin nostrils; fetlocks made
For speed and strength; the mane a flag unfurled;
Upon her haunches rising, when she neighed,
A terror ran through Europe and the world. ”