The Festival of Serpents

Sarojini Naidu

  Shining ones awake, we seek your chosen temples 

  In caves and sheltering sandhills and sacred banyan roots;

  O lift your dreaming heads from their trance of ageless wisdom,

  And weave your mystic measures to the melody of flutes.

    

  We bring you milk and maize, wild figs and golden honey,

  And kindle fragrant incense to hallow all the air,

  With fasting lips we pray, with fervent hearts we praise you,

  O bless our lowly offerings and hearken to our prayer.

    

  Guard our helpless lives and guide our patient labours,

  And cherish our dear vision like the jewels in your crests;

  O spread your hooded watch for the safety of our slumbers,

  And soothe the troubled longings that clamour in our breasts.



  Swift are ye as streams and soundless as the dewfall,

  Subtle as the lightning and splendid as the sun;

  Seers are ye and symbols of the ancient silence,

  Where life and death and sorrow and ecstasy are one.

    

    

Sarojini Naidu's, "The Festival of Serpents" comes from her collection "The Bird of Time"