Her Conception of Nature:
The colours, the sounds and lights, the scents and the touch of natural objects fascinated her and thrilled her with the rapture of song. Her early English poetry is mostly imitative of English colours and odours, skylarks and nightingales and is reminiscent of the English poetry of Keats, and Shelley, Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelites. Edmund Gosse, the celebrated English critic, recognized her poetic promise and advised her to write about Indian things. She immediately acted on his advice and began to write about Indian flowers and Indian seasons. Her nature comprising two groups Songs of the Spring Time and The Flowering Year is typically Indian.
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| Fauna and Flora in Sarojini Naidu’s Poetry |
Frankly Poetry of Nature and Her Innocent Response to Nature:
Her love of nature is reflected even in poems which are not about nature, but have a different theme. Nature is the external environment of man, and Sarojini looks at it with a child-like, open-eyed wonder. Her response to Nature is simple and innocent like that of a child who looks at nature with fascination and is struck with awe by her grandeur and her mystery. It is the homely and the familiar that fascinates Sarojini. She shuts her eyes to the ugly and the terrible in nature. Similarly, she does not philosophise nature.
Sensuousness, the Predominant Quality:
Sensuousness is the predominant quality in her nature poetry. There is no deep thought, no moral edification, no profound philosophy in her nature poems. Even some of the finest nature poems June Sunset, Summer Woods, Vasant Panchmi, A Song of Spring, In A Time of Flowers, in spite of their melancholy note, touch only the fringe of human experience and do not stir deeper springs of emotions in human heart. All her senses were keen and responded quickly to the outer world, and her sensitive soul vibrated to every kind of sense impressions.
Partiality for Spring and Flowers:
She has a woman's or poet's partiality for spring. Many of her poems are full of spring imagery. She draws loving pictures of gulmohurs, golden cassias, nasturtiums, champak blossoms, wild lilies, and the bright pomegranate buds. She offers the fragrant odours of henna, sirisha and neem. She gives us a chance to hear the melodious songs of various birds and buzzing of bees. It is altogether a picture of lost innocence, to us in modern India, caught up as we are in fever and fret of materialism. Her Nature Poems can be divided into the following two categories:
1. Poems on Seasons
2. Poems on Flowers
1. Her Poems on Seasons:
Her poems on seasons are mainly written on spring whose beauty has been sung in Spring, A Song in Spring, A Joy of the Spring-time, Vasant Panchmi, The Coming of Spring and The Time of Roses. She has written two poems—June Sunset and Summer Woods—on summer and only one—Autumn Song—on Autumn. Winter does not find any place in her nature poetry.
Vivid Expression on the Sensuous Manifestation of Nature:
Her poems on seasons do not certain any outstanding or any deep thought. They are the vivid expression on the sensuous manifestation of nature. Spring is a season of joy and revivification. In spring sweet new leaves grow on trees and birds sing sweet songs. Golden poppies, coral and ivory lilies bloom and make the surrounding beautiful and odorous. Sweet-scented and gentle gust of wind blow in the wild-rose hedge, and the luminous blue of the hills. The lovers, Kamla and Krishna, what enjoy Arcadian love, are filled with rapture:
"Kamala tinkles a lingering foot.
In the grove where temple-bells ring,
And Krishna plays on his bamboo flute,
An idyl of love and spring." (Spring)
The poetess not only enjoys the magnificent beauty of nature herself, but also summons her children—Padmaja and Lila—to share in the joys of spring time :
"Children, my children, the spring wakes anew,
And calls through the dawn and the daytime
For flower-like and fleet-footed maidens like you,
To share in the joy of its playtime.” (The Call of Spring)
The Notes of Joy and Melancholy in Her Poems of Spring Time:
The transience of beauty and the profound anguish caused by the absence of the beloved annihilate the deep joy of spring. This melancholy strain is conspicuous in her later nature poems, whereas the early nature poems, extracts are characterized by a joyous mood. The maiden intends enjoying the beauties of spring but the thought of her dead love deadens her zest and she tries in vain to awake her beloved to share joys of the spring time.
2. Poems on Flowers:
In some of her poems—In Praise of Gulmohur Blossoms, Nasturtiums, Golden Champak Blossoms and The Time of Rose—she sings in praise of individual flowers. Gulmohur blossoms lure by their glimmering red colour. In her short poem Nasturtiums, she exquisitely describes the perfume and colour of nasturtiums and vividly associates them with the longings, fears and tears of the immortal women in Hindu legend. The poetess heart thrills with joy at the sight of golden cassia. Champak Blossoms with their sweet fragrance and radiant colours have a brief existence. They have rich romantic associations and have been dear to poets and maidens since times immemorial. The sight of lovely roses blossoming in fields and gardens, on tombs and towers, on river banks and in the midst of moonlit grasses fascinates her and fills her with unspeakable rapture.
Nature as a Storehouse of Images:
Images used in her treatment of Nature are sensuous, impassioned, profuse, rich and luxuriant, hence romantic. They are striking, fresh and new, breaking new grounds, taken as they are, from Indian legend, history, mythology and life as a whole. But it is from Nature that she collects most of her images. In Summer Woods she skilfully uses the image of Radha and Krishna in a new context:
"You and I together, Love, in deep blossoming woods
Engirt with low-voiced silences and gleaming solitudes,
Companions of the lustrous dawn, gay comrades of the night,
Like Krishna and like Radha, encompassed with delight."
Finally, it is observed that Sarojini Naidu was a deep and true lover of Nature. This is manifested not only in her observations about Nature in her poems but also in her letters. She presents Nature as soothing, sympathetic and benevolent. She deals only with the beautiful, the homely and life-giving and life-protecting aspects of the external world. Nature in her poetry does not appear in her ugly forms "red in tooth and claw". Nature to her is a sanctuary of peace and a repose of rest, a source of sensuous pleasure, and object of beauty, and so a fount of perennial joy.