India's Gifts

Sarojini Naidu

  Mrs. Sarojini Naidu indited the following verses for

  the Report of the Hyderabad Ladies’ War Relief

  Association, Dec. 1915:


  Is there aught you need that my hands 

  withhold,

  Rich gifts of raiment or grain or gold?

  Lo! I have flung to the East and West

  Priceless treasures torn from my breast?

  And yielded the sons of my stricken womb

  To the drum beats of duty, the sabres of

  doom.

  Gathered like pearls in their alien graves

  Silent they sleep by the Persian waves, 

  Scattered like shells on Egyptian sands,

  They lie with pale brows and brave, 

  broken hands,

  They are strewn like blossoms mown down

   by chance

  On the blood-brown meadows of Flanders

   and France.

  Can ye measure the grief of the tears

   I weep

  Or compass the woe of the watch I keep?

  Or the pride that thrills thro’ my heart’s

  despair,

  And the hope that comforts the anguish of

  prayer?

  And the far sad and glorious vision I see

  Of the torn red banners of Victory ?

  When the terror and tumult of hate shall

   cease

  And life be refashioned on anvils of peace,

  And your love shall offer memorial thanks

  To the comrades who fought in your

  dauntless ranks.

  And you honour the deeds of the deathless

  ones

  Remember the blood of thy martyred sons!


    

Sarojini Naidu's, "Love and Death" comes from her collection "The Bird of Time"