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The Feast of Youth *
THIS is the first published book of a young poet whose name has recently and suddenly emerged under unusually favourable auspices. English poetry written by an Indian writer who uses the foreign medium as if it were his mother- tongue, with a spontaneous ease, power and beauty, the author a brother of the famous poetess Sarojini Naidu, one of a family which promises to be as remarkable as the Tagores by its possession of culture, talent and genius, challenging attention and sympathy by his combination of extreme youth and a high and early brilliance and already showing in his work, even though still immature, magnificent performance as well as a promise which makes it difficult to put any limits to the heights he may attain, - the book at once attracts interest and has come into immediate prominence amidst general appreciation and admiration. We have had already in the same field of achievement in Sarojini Naidu's poetry qualities which make her best work exquisite, unique and unmatchable in its kind. The same qualities are not to be found in this book, but it shows other high gifts which, when brought to perfection, must find an equal pitch with a greater scope. Here perhaps. are the beginnings of a supreme utterance of the Indian soul in the rhythms of the English tongue. That is a combination which,
it may be well hoped for the sake of India's future, will not become too
frequent a phenomenon. But at the present moment it serves both an artistic and
a national purpose and seems to be part of the movement of
destiny. In any case, whatever may be said of the made-in-India type of
second-hand English verse in which men of great literary gift in southern India
too often waste their talent, Mr. Chattopadhyay's production justifies itself
by its beauty. This is not only genuine poetry, but the work of a young, though
still unripe genius with an incalculable promise of greatness in it. As to the Page-304 abundance here of all the essential materials, the instruments, the elementary
powers of the poetical gift, there can be not a moment's doubt or hesitation.
Even the first few lines, though far from the best, are quite decisive. A rich
and finely lavish command of language, a firm possession of his metrical
instrument, an almost blinding gleam and glitter of the wealth of imagination
and fancy, a stream of unfailingly poetic thought and image and a high though
as yet uncertain pitch of expression, are the powers with which the young poet
starts. There have been poets of a great final achievement who have begun with
gifts of a less precious stuff and had by labour within themselves and a
difficult alchemy to turn them into pure gold. Mr. Chattopadhyay is not of
these; he is rather overburdened with the favours of the goddess, comes like
some Vedic Marut with golden weapons, golden ornaments, car of gold, throwing
in front of him continual lightnings of thought in the midst of a shining rain
of fancies, .and a greater government and a more careful and concentrated use
rather than an enhancement of his powers is the one thing his poetry needs for
its perfection.
O! I shall draw the blue out of the skies And offer it like wine of paradise and the rest is an ample fulfilment of the promise. For the thought and sentiment are an eager, fine and fiery drinking of the joy of life and being, not in the pagan or physically sensuous kind of enjoyment, but with a spiritual and singularly pure intoxication of the thought, imagination and higher sense. The spiritual joy of existence, of its primal colour and symbolic subtleties, its essential sense, images, suggestions, a free and in- tense voluptuousness of light is the note. Occasionally there is the attempt to bring in an incidental tone of sorrow, but attacked Page -305 by the glowing atmosphere of exultation, overcome and rendered unreal by the
surrounding light and bliss, it fails to convince. Expression matches
substance; there is here no holding back, no reticence, no idea of self-restraint,
but rather a reckless ecstasy and outpouring. Suggestion chases suggestion,
fancy runs after or starts away from fancy with no very exacting sequence; the
exhilaration of self-utterance dominates. One is a little dazzled at first and
has to accustom the eyes to the glitter, before one can turn to the heart of
the meaning: excess, profusion, an unwearied lavishing of treasures creates the
charm of the manner as well as its limitations; but this is often an excellent
sign in a young poet, for it promises much richness in the hour of maturity;
and here it is almost always, - not quite always, for there are lapses, - a
fine, though not yet a sovereign excess, which continually attracts and
stimulates the imagination, if it does not always quite take it captive.
Her girdles and her fillets gleam Like changing fires on Sunset seas: Page -306
Shot opal, gold and amethyst.
face, O Love!
purple of skies. Page -307
There is a sweetness in the world That I
have sometimes felt, His
fragrance I have smelt... The kindness He hath dealt! It is more beautifully and mystically brought out in another poem,
"Worship", -
You hide the crimson secret of your sunset, You fashion cool-grey clouds within my body, And weave your rain into a diamond mesh. The Universal Beauty
dances, dances Thro' the springtime and the autumn Shaping every flower and fruit... And His gleaming laughter colours Orange hills and purple streams, He is throbbing in the crystal, Magic centre of my dreams... Silver stars are visible twinkles Page -308 Of His clear,
transparent touch... To the world He loves so
much! And breathes His music into
every shell... Seeing Thee play at crystal stars
above! Page -309 lamp of his love and desire, for their light is not real", and replaced
them by the miraculous fire of this shining ideal. In the Sonnets, however, in
some other poems and in the poet's later work there is the beginning of greater
warmth and a nearer sweetness. Page -310 them more firmly and constantly. Already - in. most of the poems, but I may
instance "Memory", "My Unlaunched Boat", the three Sonnets
and some of the "Songs of Sunlight," - there is the frequency of a
full and ripe expression and movement, sometimes varying from a mellow clarity
to a concentrated force, - The earth beneath her
tread And for her tender beauty wove a
flowery bed... And fled. with all the laughter of
earth's flowers... Page -311 musing. We
may well hope to find in him a supreme singer of the vision of God in Nature
and Life, and the meeting of the divine and the human which must be at first
the most vivifying and liberating part of India's message to a humanity that is
now touched everywhere by a growing will for the spiritualising of the earth
existence. Page -312 |