Analysis of To The God of Pain

Sarojini Naidu 1879 (Hyderabad) – 1949 (Lucknow)



UNWILLING priestess in thy cruel fane,
Long hast thou held me, pitiless god of Pain,
Bound to thy worship by reluctant vows,
My tired breast girt with suffering, and my brows
Anointed with perpetual weariness.
Long have I borne thy service, through the stress
Of rigorous years, sad days and slumberless nights,
Performing thine inexorable rites.

For thy dark altars, balm nor milk nor rice,
But mine own soul thou'st ta'en for sacrifice:

All the rich honey of my youth's desire,
And all the sweet oils from my crushed life drawn,
And all my flower-like dreams and gem-like fire
Of hopes up-leaping like the light of dawn.

I have no more to give, all that was mine
Is laid, a wrested tribute, at thy shrine;
Let me depart, for my whole soul is wrung,
And all my cheerless orisons are sung;
Let me depart, with faint limbs let me creep
To some dim shade and sink me down to sleep.


Scheme AABBXXCC DD EFEF GGHHII
Poetic Form Tetractys  (20%)
Metre 0101001101 11111100111 1111010101 110111100011 01010100100 1111110101 1100111011 010110001 1111011111 11111111110 10110111010 0101111111 011101101110 1111010111 1111111111 1101010111 1101111111 0111111 1101111111 1111011111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 887
Words 162
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 2, 4, 6
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 172
Words per stanza (avg) 40
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 23, 2023

49 sec read
307

Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu, born as Sarojini Chattopadhyay also known by the sobriquet as The Nightingale of India, was a child prodigy, Indian independence activist and poet. Naidu served as the first governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949; the first woman to become the governor of an Indian state. She was the second woman to become the president of the Indian National Congress in 1925 and the first Indian woman to do so. more…

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