Compiled by London Swaminathan 

 

Date: 4 April 2018

 

Time uploaded in London –  7-42 am (British Summer Time)

 

Post No. 4880

 

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Following are some of the poems about India composed by famous people. Tamil poet Bharati has composed lot of verses on India in Tamil. I will give the English translations of those separately.

FREEDOM
Freedom from want and hunger
Freedom from disease
Freedom from ignorance and illiteracy
Freedom from caste and communal tensions
Freedom from foreign interference
These are not just dreams
These are free India’s aspirations
And for their fulfilment each one of us must be
Prepared for hard work and sacrifice
Together we can
Together we must
—–Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity, Govt. of India

Xxx

 

HAIL TO THE MOTHER!

Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams
Cool with thy winds of delight
Dark fields waving, Mother of might
Mother free.
Glory of moonlight dreams
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming ,
Mother, giver of ease
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother, I kiss thy feet
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I bow.
——Bankim Chandra Chatterjee

Xxx

 

An Adieu

 

India, farewell! I shall not see again

Thy shining shores, thy peoples of the sun

Gentle, soft mannered, by a kind word won

To such quick kindness! O’er the Arab main

Our flying flag streams back; and backwards stream

My thoughts to those fair open fields I love,

City and village, maidan, jungle, grove,

The temples and rivers! Must it seem

Too great for one man’s heart to say it holds

So many many Indian sisters dear,

So many unknown brothers? That it folds

Lakhs of true friends parting? Nay! But there

Lingers my heart, leave-taking; and it roves

From hut to hut whispering “he knows and loves!”

Good-bye! Good-night! Sweet may your slumbers be,

Gunga! And Kasi! And Saraswati!

—Edwin Arnold

March 8, 1886

 

xxxx

Past Glory

My country! In thy days of glory past
A beauteous halo circled round thy brow
and worshipped as a deity thou wast—
Where is thy glory, where the reverence now?
Thy eagle pinion is chained down at last,
And grovelling in the lowly dust art thou,
Thy minstrel hath no wreath to weave for thee
Save the sad story of thy misery!
Well—let me dive into the depths of time
And bring from out the ages, that have rolled
A few small fragments of these wrecks sublime
Which human eye may never more behold
And let the guerdon of my labour be,
My fallen country! One kind wish for thee!

 

—Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1819-1831,Kolkata)

 

xxxx

Munshi’s Poem

Beyond the rugged plane

Andd the flowing stream

And life on these

Shines forth the

Light of knowledge

That Indian stands for.

–Kulapati K M Munshi

 

xxx

Sarojini Naidu’s Poem

Thy Future calls thee with a manifold sound

To crescent honours, splendours, victories vast;

Waken, O Slumbering Mother, and be crowned,

O friend, my country’s friend, O voice incarnate, free,

O India’s soul!

–Sarojini Naidu

 

xxx

 

Concern for India

Heavens have concealed thunderstorms under the horizons
Let not the nightingale of the garden remain unaware of the danger
Get concerned about the motherland
O! I innocent compatriot. Trouble is
In store for you,
There are signs of your destruction
In the skies above
Look at what is happening now, and
What is in store for the future,
Nothing would be gained by harping-on the tales of the past
Take heed, sons and daughters of Hind

—Poet Iqbal’s  poem,
Taswir I Dard

 

SARE JAHAN SE ACCHHA SONG

 

Our India is the best amongst the countries of the world. We are its nightingales and it is our garden.

That highest peak – neighbour of the sky is our guard.

A thousand rivulets play in its lap.

And due to them it has become the envy of the heaven.

religion does not teach us mutual hatred. we all are Indians and India is our country.

—Poet Iqbal (English translation of his Sare Jahan se achha Hindustan Hamara

 

xxx

BHARAT AMAR
INDIA, my INDIA, where first human eyes awoke to heavenly light!
All Asia’s holy place of pilgrimage, great Motherland of might!
World mother, first giver to human kind of philosophy and sacred lore,
Know ledge thou gav’st to man, God love, works, art, religions open door,
O even with all that grandeur dwarfed or turned to bitter loss and maim
How shall we mourn who are thy children and can vaunt thy mighty name?
Before us still there floats the ideal of these splendid days of gold
A new world in our vision wakes, Loves India we shall rise to mould.
India, my India, who dare call thee a thing for pity’s grace today?
Mother of wisdom, worship, works, nurse of the spirits inward Ray!
—-Dwijendra lal

Xxx

 

BHARATHOM

Spreading her glory everywhere
India is developing
Adding strength and influence
India prospers day by day.

At the onset of dawn
With her darkness gone
Happiness flourishes on
In the minds of everyone

Oh, Motherland, like a Kamadhenu
When your chains are broken
There in the faces of villages
Is seen the smile of prosperity

The depressed, and the lazy
The sufferer and the greedy
Shall have no place
And with these will go illiteracy.
Vennikulam Gopalakurup

—A poem in Malayalam prescribed for fourth standard in Kerala

Xxxx

 

from A H H Murray’s book Highway to Empire

–subham–