The Indian to his Love: Yeats

By: Bijay Kant Dubey 

The island dreams under the dawn

And great boughs drop tranquillity;

The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,

A parrot sways upon a tree,

Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.

 

Here we will moor our lonely ship

And wander ever with woven hands,

Murmuring softly lip to lip,

Along the grass, along the sands,

Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands:

 

How we alone of mortals are

Hid under quiet boughs apart,

While our love grows an Indian star,

A meteor of the burning heart,

One with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam and dart,

 

The heavy boughs, the burnished dove

That moans and sighs a hundred days:

How when we die our shades will rove,

When eve has hushed the feathered ways,

With vapoury footsole by the water's drowsy blaze.

The Indian to His Love as a poem is similar to that one already titled as The Indian Upon God and both the poems are similar in style and penetration barring the thematic variation as because the latter is about how do the Indians see God while the former is all about Indian love-view. What is love? How is it the feeling and emotion of it? How do the Indians take to love?  ‘Amar-prem, nischal prem’, he talks it about, the sacred heart in which dwells it God, internal bonding so full of sympathy and affection. Who loves the soul? Who loves whom by heart, say you? ‘Pavitra mann’, pure inner mind, how many of us have it? As true friendship is rarer so is guileless love. Discard your ‘papa’, sin from your ‘mann’ and try to make your heart purer. This is the lesson which but it gives to, tenders to. Love without any tumult and convulsion he thinks of. But nothing is bereft of smudges. In search of beauty, love and truth, we just keep wandering, craving for.

Poet Yeats has written the poem under the influence of the Indian friends or he himself  has with his thoughts and ideas enjoying the warmth of relationship with in a commemorative way. The influence and mixing with the Orientalists, Sanskritists, Theosophists can also be not denied. Yeats is definitely a link between the Western and the Indian thought and tradition and he has the capacity to synthesize it. This is the reason for which he could not be with Tagore for so long. Even Rudyard Kipling too could not parallel him.

Is Yeats thinking about love in an Indian way or style? Is he feeling about friendship? Or, something different lies it stated in? Is Yeats like Goethe feeling the love of Shakuntala? There is also something of Mira and Radha in it? An Indian to his love or Yeats to his love in an Indian way? Can one not love the heart and the soul?

Let us what does Yeats discuss it here in this poem? By the term the Indian to his love, what does he mean to say? How does the Indian take it love? The island keeps dreaming under the dawn with the great boughs dropping tranquillity. The peahens dance they on a smooth lawn and a parrot too sways upon a tree raging at his own image in the enamelled sea. The parrot of the heart, what to say it about? How to say it when the peahen dances in the inner heart?

Here they will moor their lonely ship and thereafter will keep wandering ever with woven hands, murmuring softly lip to lip, along the grass, along the sands, murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands. Here the poet talks of lust, craze and craving; aspiration, yearning and love, peace and solace. Keeping the ship at bay, they will go for wandering, dreaming, gliding, taking flights and sharing the things of the heart.

How alone are they of mortals hidden under quiet boughs apart! But there is something to learn and feel it within. Their love grows like an Indian star, a meteor of the burning heart. But when the tide comes, it gleams. It may take wings. Why our selves lying apart from? The tides of emotion and passion rise and fall.

Heavy the boughs, when the things come to last, the burnished dove which will sigh  and moan a hundred days. How will be the things when we die, return to nought? Our shades and shadows will rove it when the eve hushes it the feathered ways with vapoury foot sole by the water’s drowsy blaze.

Where will the spirit travel to? The world is vast. Where will the soul keep wandering? Where will the self go? After seeing the scenery and picture, the self reverts to. Say you, what is lovely and beautiful? What does it fare throughout? Outwards appearance and inward appearance are two different aspects to be discerned within. Things of beauty and heart too are similar. The doves of love want to sit together and share with, but what is it love, where is love? How the residues of meaning, the remnants of thought and idea?