Analysis of An Indian Love Song
Sarojini Naidu 1879 (Hyderabad) – 1949 (Lucknow)
Lift up the veils that darken the delicate moon
of thy glory and grace,
Withhold not, O love, from the night
of my longing the joy of thy luminous face,
Give me a spear of the scented keora
guarding thy pinioned curls,
Or a silken thread from the fringes
that trouble the dream of thy glimmering pearls;
Faint grows my soul with thy tresses' perfume
and the song of thy anklets' caprice,
Revive me, I pray, with the magical nectar
that dwells in the flower of thy kiss.
How shall I yield to the voice of thy pleading,
how shall I grant thy prayer,
Or give thee a rose-red silken tassel,
a scented leaf from my hair?
Or fling in the flame of thy heart's desire the veils that cover my face,
Profane the law of my father's creed for a foe
of my father's race?
Thy kinsmen have broken our sacred altars and slaughtered our sacred kine,
The feud of old faiths and the blood of old battles sever thy people and mine.
What are the sins of my race, Beloved,
what are my people to thee?
And what are thy shrines, and kine and kindred,
what are thy gods to me?
Love recks not of feuds and bitter follies,
of stranger, comrade or kin,
Alike in his ear sound the temple bells
and the cry of the muezzin.
For Love shall cancel the ancient wrong
and conquer the ancient rage,
Redeem with his tears the memoried sorrow
that sullied a bygone age.
Scheme | ABXBCDXDXXCX XCXCBXBAX XEXEXXXAXFCF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110111001001 111001 01111101 111001111001 110110101 10111 101011010 11001111001 1111111001 001111001 011111010010 110010111 11111011110 111111 1110111010 0101111 110011110100111011 010111101101 11101 1111010101001010101 0111100111101011001 110111101 1111011 0111101010 111111 1111101010 110111 0101110101 001101 111100101 0100101 011110110 110011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,332 |
Words | 259 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 9, 12 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 347 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 85 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 1:18 min read
- 703 Views
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