As a poetess, says Dr. Iyengar, Toru ‘compels attention’. Her most striking feature is the lyrical impulse. Though she is not so great a lyric poet as Tagore and Sarojini Naidu are (who know she could have excelled them had she lived longer), yet the entire Ancient Ballads is marked by lyricism. There is a sweep in her lines and a melody in her verse. Just mark the lyric impulse in the following lines:
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| Toru Dutt As A Lyric Poet |
“Past all the houses, past the wall,
Past gardens gay, and hedgerows trim,
Past fields, where sinuous brooklets small
With molten silver to the brim
Glance in the sun's expiring light,
Past frowning hills, past pastures wild,
At last arises on the sight.
Foliage on foliage densely piled......”
This passage from Savitri is not only musical but also remarkable for tender feelings. It describes the joyous marriage procession marching along the streets of Madra. Here is Keatsean simplicity. In simplicity and lucidity of expression, in easy and graceful style, in apt diction and spontaneous images, in brevity of expression and emotional intensity she is a lyric poet. She has perfected the sonnet form. One cannot but admire the simplicity of style and aptness of diction in lines like the following:
“We do not curse thee, God forbid!
But to my inner eye
The future is no longer hid
Thou too shalt like us die
Die for a son's untimely loss!
Die with a broken heart!
Now help us to our bed of moss
And let us both depart.”
In the words of Dr. K. R. S. Iyengar, “Toru was already a good craftsman in verse, her feeling for words was impeccable, and her eye and ear were alike trained for poetic description or dialogue.” She also demonstrated her lyrical gifts in the translations of French lyrics. The attractive image of her romanticism has not lost its human and poetic charm with the passage of time. Her lyrics are also remarkable for their description of Nature such as the following :
“The champak, bok, and South - sea pine,
The nagessur with pendant flowers
Like ear - rings, and the forest vine
That clinging over all, embowers.
The sirish famed in Sanskrit song
Which rural maidens love to wear,
The peepul giant - like and strong,
The bramble with its matted hair........
A waving Pampas green and fair
All glistening with the evening dew.....”
Among the poems left by her, the one that attracts especially our attention is the allegorical poem “Our Casuarina Tree” consisting of five stanzas. For the poetess, the Indian tree Casuarina, which grows in the courtyard of her house and with which all the reminiscences of her childhood are connected, is the symbol of the motherland and at the same time is the symbol of tenacity, strength and tranquility. It grows firmly by roots in the earth:
“Like a huge python, winding round and round
The rugged trunk, indented deep with scars
Up to its very summit near the stars,
A creeper climbs, in whose embraces bound
No other tree could live. But gallantly
The giant wears the scarf, and flowers are hung
In crimson clusters all the boughs among,
Whereon all day are gathered bird and bee:
And oft at nights the garden overflows
With one sweet song that seems to have no close,
Sung darkling from our tree, while men repose.”
In the second stanza, Toru describes the casuarina tree in a typical Indian graphic frame:
“When first my casement is wide open thrown
At dawn, my eyes delighted on it rest;
Sometimes, and most in winter, -on its crest
A gray baboon sits statue - like alone
Watching the sunrise; while on lower boughs
His puny offspring leap about and play;
And far and near kokilas hail the day.”
Further, Toru recollects her dead brother and sister, with whom she played in childhood under the top of Casuarina and once again in the verse the same chain of symbolic images come up: the tree, the motherland the source of inner poise and tranquility:
“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,
The form, O Tree, as in my happier prime
I saw thee, in my own loved native clime.”
For its mastery of construction of phrases, and for rhythm and melodiousness, Srinivas Iyengar regards the poem, “Our Casuarina Tree” as a superb piece of writing. It gives an idea about the poetic taste as well as about the craftsmanship of Toru.