To India - Sarojini Naidu

To India

O YOUNG through all thy immemorial years!

Rise, Mother, rise, regenerate from thy gloom,

And, like a bride high-mated with the spheres,

Beget new glories from thine ageless womb!

The nations that in fettered darkness weep

Crave thee to lead them where great mornings break . . . .

Mother, O Mother, wherefore dost thou sleep?

Arise and answer for thy children's sake!

Thy Future calls thee with a manifold sound

To crescent honours, splendours, victories vast;

Waken, O slumbering Mother and be crowned,

Who once wert empress of the sovereign Past.

Sarojini Naidu

Bangle sellers - Sarojini Naidu

The Bangle Sellers

Bangle sellers are we who bear
Our shining loads to the temple fair...
Who will buy these delicate, bright
Rainbow-tinted circles of light?
Lustrous tokens of radiant lives,
For happy daughters and happy wives.
Some are meet for a maiden's wrist,
Silver and blue as the mountain mist,
Some are flushed like the buds that dream
On the tranquil brow of a woodland stream,
Some are aglow wth the bloom that cleaves
To the limpid glory of new born leaves
Some are like fields of sunlit corn,
Meet for a bride on her bridal morn,
Some, like the flame of her marriage fire,
Or, rich with the hue of her heart's desire,
Tinkling, luminous, tender, and clear,
Like her bridal laughter and bridal tear.
Some are purple and gold flecked grey
For she who has journeyed through life midway,
Whose hands have cherished, whose love has blest,
And cradled fair sons on her faithful breast,
And serves her household in fruitful pride,
And worships the gods at her husband's side.
Sarojini Naidu