Though
Swami Vivekananda wrote these poems in different circumstances and for
different purposes, an undercurrent of Swamiji’s passionate concern for
the political bondage of his country and a deeply embedded sense of the
need for preparing India for political freedom are perceptible to a
careful reader. The poems under discussion have oblique reference to
India’s struggle to seek an identity.
“TO THE AWAKENED INDIA”
This
poem was composed by Swami Vivekananda at Srinagar (Kashmir) in June
1898 and was written to the journal Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India,
in August 1898, when the journal was transferred from Madras to Almora,
Himalayas, into the hands of the Brotherhood founded by Swami
Vivekananda. Sister Nivedita writes: “The Swami always had a special
love for this paper, as the beautiful name he had given it indicate… Day
after day, he would talk of the forthcoming first number, under the new
editorship of Swami Swarupananda. And one afternoon, he brought to us,
as we sat together, a paper, on which he said, he had “tried to write a
letter, but it would come this way”.
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Read
at one level, the title of the poem may point to the name of the
journal, and at another, it may be taken as a reference to the
resurgence of “the sleeping Leviathan i.e. India.
“Once more awake!
For sleep it was, not death, to bring thee life anew”.
When we reach the last stanza, the poet extends his meaning.
“Awake, arise, and dream no more”.
“Be bold, and face the truth! Be one with it!”
He
exhorts the world to dream truer dreams, which are eternal love and
service free. The poet in fact addresses the motherland. Here he says:
“The Mother that resides in all as power and Life…Makes of one the
World…and shows the One in All”.
“TO THE FOURTH OF JULY”
Vivekananda
wrote this poem on the 4th of July 1898, when he was traveling with
some of his western disciples in Kashmir. He had a tailor make a replica
of the American flag together with branches of evergreen. It was nailed
to the prow of the dining room boat, where a tea was arranged. As part
of a ‘domestic conspiracy’ for the celebration of the day…the
anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence…he composed this
poem and told the disciples accompanying him to read the poem aloud at
the time of breakfast. Mrs. Ole Bull, one of the disciples of Swamiji,
preserved this poem. It is significant to note that Swami Vivekananda
gave up his mortal frame on the same day four years later.
Behold, the dark clouds melt away
That gathered thick at night and hung
So like a gloomy pall above the earth!
Before thy magic touch the world
Awakes. The birds in chorus sing.
The flowers raise their star-like crowns,
Dew-set, and wave thee welcome fair.
The lakes are opening wide, in love
Their hundred thousand lotus-eyes
To welcome thee with all their depth.
All hail to thee, thou lord of light!
A welcome new to thee today,
O sun! Today thou sheddest liberty!
Bethink thee how the world did wait
And search for thee, through time and clime!
Some gave up home and love of friends
And went in quest of thee, self-banished,
Through dreary oceans, through primeval forests,
Each step a struggle for their life or death;
Then came the day when work bore fruit,
And worship, love, and sacrifice,
Fulfilled, accepted, and complete.
Then thou, propitious, rose to shed
The light of freedom on mankind.
Move on, O lord, in thy resistless path,
Till thy high noon o'erspreads the world,
Till every land reflects thy light,
Till men and women, with uplifted head,
Behold their shackles broken and know
In springing joy their life renewed!
“It
is not the actual Fourth of July that is portrayed, but a blending of
the concrete and the abstract responses to a national event and to
eternal concepts,” says Carebanu Cooper. Image and idea, symbol and
thought are integrated in the poem.
Vivekananda
uses two words “Liberty” and “Freedom” in this poem. In a letter
written to Mrs. Bose, Vivekananda defines “liberty” as “full right to
their body, wealth etc” and “freedom” as “advance towards Mukti” in all matters.
“KALI THE MOTHER”
This
poem was written or forced itself into writing, when, during the days
of pilgrimage to Kshir Bhawani (Kashmir) in 1898; the Swami was in such a
high spiritual state that it seemed indeed as if his physical frame
could not bear it for long.
Sister Nivedita who accompanied the Swami on that pilgrimage
says: ‘His brain was teeming with thoughts, he said one day, and his
fingers would not rest till they were written down. It was that same
evening that he came back to our house-boat from some expedition, and
found waiting for us, where he had called and left them, his manuscript
lines on Kali the Mother. Writing in a fever of inspiration, he had
fallen on the floor, when he had finished…as we learnt
afterwards…exhausted with his own intensity.’
The stars are blotted out,
The clouds are covering clouds,
It is darkness, vibrant, sonant;
In the roaring, whirling wind
Are the souls of a million lunatics,
Just loose from the prison-house,
Wrenching trees by the roots,
Sweeping all from the path.
The sea has joined the fray
And swirls up mountain-waves
To reach the pitchy sky.
The flash of lurid light
Reveals on every side
A thousand thousand shades
Of death, begrimed and black.
Scattering plagues and sorrows,
Dancing mad with joy,
Come, Mother, come!
For terror is Thy name,
Death is in Thy breath,
And every shaking step
Destroys a world for e'er.
Thou Time, the All-destroyer,
Come, O Mother, come!
Who dares misery love,
And hug the form of death,
Dance in Destruction's dance —
To him the Mother comes.
This
poem glorifies the power behind manifestation. The Swami worships the
terrible here. The universe provides a stage for the enactment of the
Mother’s frenzied dance. According to Ms. Cooper, “Kali destroys those
traits in man that hinder him from an awareness of his divinity”. The
supreme must be thought of either as Infinite Being or as Infinite
Power. Here the poet sees Her as Infinite Power.
“Kali the Mother” had inspired great patriots like Sri
Aurobindo and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. It served as a model for Sri
Aurobindo’s Bhawani Mandir manifesto. About the primordial energy
personified in the Mother worship, Sri Aurobindo says: “The Shakti we call India. Bhawani Bharati is the living unity of the Shaktis of three hundred million people; but she is inactive, imprisoned in the magic circle of Tamas,
the self-indulgent inertia and ignorance of her sons. Strength can only
be created by drawing it from the eternal and inexhaustible reservoirs
of the spirit, from the Adya-Shakti of the Eternal which is the fountain
of all new existence”. Dr. Radhakrishnan says that Vivekananda give
“articulation and voice to that eternal spirit of India”.
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*Chander M. Bhat Born on March 20th 1960 in village Murran, Pulwama,
Kashmir. Poems written in English published in various newspapers and
magazines. Articles on various subjects also stand published. Two book
in English “MURRAN …MY VILLAGE” and “OCEAN BY DROPS” stands
published. Research papers on “Vitasta…. The Sacred River of Kashmir”
and “The Splendour that is Amarnath” stand published in leading
magazines. A book “Jammu and Kashmir…Origin and History” underway. 
