Toru Dutt

 

SONNET  A sea of foliage girds  our garden round, But not a sea of dull unvaried green, Sharp contrasts of all colors here are seen; The light-green graceful tamarinds abound Amid the mango clumps of green profound, And palms arise, like pillars gray, between; And o'er the quiet pools the seemuls lean, Red--red, and startling like a trumpet's sound. But nothing can be lovelier than the ranges Of bamboos to the eastward, when the moon Looks through their gaps, and the white lotus changes Into a cup of silver. One might swoon Drunken with beauty then, or gaze and gaze On a primeval Eden, in amaze.   OUR CASUARINA TREE But not because of its magnificence  Dear is the casuarina tree to my soul:  Beneath it we have played; though years may roll  O sweet companions, loved with love intense,  For your sakes shall the tree be ever dear!  Blent with your images, it shall arise  In memory, till the hot tears blind mine eyes!  What is that dirge-like murmur that I hear  Like the sea breaking on a shingle-beach?  It is the tree's lament, an eerie speech,  That haply to the unknown land may reach.  "Unknown, yet well-known to the eye of faith!  Ah, I have heard that wail far, far away  In distant lands, by many a sheltered bay,  When slumbered in his cave the water-wraith  And the waves gently kissed the classic shore  Of France or Italy, beneath the moon  When earth lay tranced in a dreamless swoon:  And every time the music rose-- before  Mine inner vision rose a form sublime,  Thy form, O tree, as in my happy prime  I saw thee, in my own loved native clime...