The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring

By Sarojini Naidu and Mint Editions

The Bird of Time (1912) is a poetry collection by Sarojini Naidu. Naidu’s second book of English verse is steeped in the Romantic tradition while entirely conscious of the present political strife of her native India. From songs of love to portraits of urban life, Naidu’s poems reflect her commitment to feeling, both for herself and for others. Traditional and modern, The Bird of Time is a powerful collection from a young poet on the brink of an impassioned life in politics. “O Bird of Time on your fruitful bough / What are the songs you sing? . . . / Songs of the glory and gladness of life, / Of poignant sorrow and passionate strife, / And the lilting joy of the spring…” In this mysterious ode, Naidu addresses the themes of her own multitudinous poems—life, love, grief, and nature, among countless others. Is the Bird of Time her muse, or a symbol for poetry itself? How can a poem express “the pride of a soul that has conquered fate?” As in much of Naidu’s poetry, the symbolic maintains its distance in order to reflect a deeper, perhaps even personal truth. To describe the poem, to assign it meaning, would ultimately negate the need for poetry itself, whose powers must remain at least partially veiled. Elsewhere in the collection, “In the Bazaars of Hyderabad” reflects her commitment to the struggle for Indian independence as it celebrates the homegrown produce and handmade wares of a proud and lively people. Moving along the street, she sings to vendors, goldsmiths, and musicians alike, concluding before a group of flower-girls, whose work serves weddings and funerals. Beneath this vibrant imagery is a call to action for the Swadeshi movement, a boycott of foreign goods designed to strike a blow against British commerce. This edition of Sarojini Naidu’s The Bird of Time is a classic work of Indian literature reimagined for modern readers.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Mint Editions
• Release date: Jun 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781513223995

Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) was an Indian poet and political activist. Born in Hyderabad to a Bengali Brahmin family, she graduated from the University of Madras at twelve before journeying to England to study at King’s College London and Cambridge. At nineteen, she married physician Paidipati Govindarajulu Naidu, with whom she would raise five children. Following the partition of Bengal in 1905, Naidu became involved with the Indian independence movement. A close ally of Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi, she travelled across India to speak on social issues such as welfare and the emancipation of women, as well as to advocate for the end of colonial rule. After travelling to London to work alongside Annie Besant, Naidu devoted herself to Gandhi’s Satyagraha movement, braving arrest during the Salt March of 1930 and promoting the principles of civil disobedience across the globe. As one of the most respected poets of twentieth century India, she published such collections as The Golden Threshold (1905), The Bird of Time (1912), and The Broken Wing (1917).

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

It is only at the request, that is to say at the command, of a dear and valued friend that I consent to write these few sentences. It would seem that an introduction can only be needed when the personage to be introduced is unknown in a world prepared to welcome her but still ignorant of her qualities. This is certainly not the case with Mrs. Naidu, whose successive volumes, of which this is the third, have been received in Europe with approval, and in India with acclamation. Mrs. Naidu is, I believe, acknowledged to be the most accomplished living poet of India—at least, of those who write in English, since what lyric wonders the native languages of that country may be producing I am not competent to say. But I do not think that any one questions the supreme place she holds among those Indians who choose to write in our tongue. Indeed, I am not disinclined to believe that she is the most brilliant, the most original, as well as the most correct, of all the natives of Hindustan who have written in English. And I say this without prejudice to the fame of that delicious Toru Dutt, so exquisite in her fragility, whose life and poems it was my privilege to reveal to the world thirty years ago. For in the case of Toru Dutt, beautiful as her writings were, there was much in them to be excused by her youth, her solitude, the extremely pathetic circumstances of her brief and melancholy career. In the maturer work of Mrs. Naidu I find nothing, or almost nothing, which the severest criticism could call in question.

In a gracious sentence, published seven or eight years ago, Sarojini Naidu declared that it was the writer of this preface who first showed her the way to the golden threshold of poetry. This is her generous mode of describing certain conditions which I may perhaps be allowed to enlarge upon so far as they throw light on the contents of the volume before us. It is needless for me to repeat those particulars of the Indian poet’s early life, so picturesque and so remarkable, which were given by Mr. Arthur Symons in the excellent essay which he prefixed to her volume of 1905. Sufficient for my purpose it is to say that when Sarojini Chattopādhyāy—as she then was—first made her appearance in London, she was a child of sixteen years, but as unlike the usual English maiden of that age as a lotus or a cactus is unlike a lily of the valley. She was already marvellous in mental maturity, amazingly well read, and far beyond