The Soul’s Prayer, ENGLISH POETRY ANALYSIS, ICSE, ISC, CBSE, IGCSE, BA ENGLISH HONOURS, MA ENGLISH

 

The Soul’s Prayer by Sarojini Naidu

 

In childhood’s pride I said to Thee:

‘O Thou, who mad’st me of Thy breath,

Speak, Master, and reveal to me

Thine inmost laws of life and death.

 

‘Give me to drink each joy and pain

Which Thine eternal hand can mete,

For my insatiate soul would drain

Earth’s utmost bitter, utmost sweet.

 

‘Spare me no bliss, no pang of strife,

Withhold no gift or grief I crave,

The intricate lore of love and life

And mystic knowledge of the grave.’

 

Lord, Thou didst answer stern and low:

‘Child, I will hearken to thy prayer,

And thy unconquered soul shall know

All passionate rapture and despair.

 

‘Thou shalt drink deep of joy and fame,

And love shall burn thee like a fire,

And pain shall cleanse thee like a flame,

To purge the dross from thy desire.

 

‘So shall thy chastened spirit yearn

To seek from its blind prayer release,

And spent and pardoned, sue to learn

The simple secret of My peace.

 

‘I, bending from my sevenfold height,

Will teach thee of My quickening grace,

Life is a prism of My light,

And Death the shadow of My face.’

 

Saojini Naidu’s poetry deals with the problems of life and death as the life is full of pains, sorrows, confusions and problems. Naidu prefers to address God who is the maker of this world and creator of life and death. She writes this poem in the voice of a child who is a girl of only thirteen years old. Child is the poetess herself. She poses her faith in God and feels pride to be His innocent child. The child makes a blind prayer to God and pleads with Him to reveal the various metaphysical aspect of life.

 

It is a devotional poem of Sarojini Naidu. It was published in her collection of poems The Bird of Time in 1912.  It illustrates the truth behind life and death. In her childhood the poetess wants to know the secrets of life and death. She is open to experience both joy and sorrow. She wants to know the depth of love. The poem hints at the metaphysical ruminations of Sarojini Naidu as her soul seeks the help from the Almighty. The invocation begins with all the innocence and purity of a child’s pride. The poetess wants God to enlighten her on the most basic and innermost laws of Life and Death. She wants to have an in-depth comprehension on the twin-sided aspects of Life.

 

Purity doesn’t come cheap; we must endure the difficulties we chose for this life as souls and live with the consequences of our choices and actions – choices and actions that define us as we go along. Then God answers.

 

There are imageries in the poem. She wants to drink ‘life to the lees’ as she aspires for the two extremes of emotions-pain and joy. She is eager to solve the mystery of life and death. God accepts the prayer of the poetess. He answered her prayer. He says that her innocent soul will experience joy, pain, fame, love and all. Pain will purify her soul. For her, both gift and grief are welcome blessings that she craves for. She longs for the intricate wisdom of love and life. She also deeply craves for the mystic knowledge of the grave that has remained unexplored.

 

‘Spare me no bliss, no pang of strife,
Withhold no gift or grief I crave,
The intricate lore of love and life
And mystic knowledge of the grave.’

 

Humanity will have to go through the pain many, many lives. But eventually the lesson will be learned. Pain “cleanses us like a flame, purging the dross from our desire”.

 

The Spirit’s yearn, a seeking cry, comes not from us but from God Himself! God cries for us, His children, begging us to come home. The release is a call to the waking up that takes place when blind prayer turns into a sighted realisation: we never actually needed to learn through pain, and there was never anything to fear. Mystic mystery is a simple secret, nothing more. 

 

She acknowledges God’s answer to her prayers, and is assured that He would heed to her prayers. He ascertains that her soul would experience all the passionate raptures and unfelt despairs. God informs her that after having experienced all the love, comforts, and highs and lows of life, her soul would not be satisfied but it will crave to be released from the blind prayer. Then, drained and forgiven, her soul will beg to learn about peace, instead of passion. It will want to know how to leave the fire and flame behind, the burning and cleansing, and simply experience quiet, underrated peace. It will wish to achieve salvation.

 

The Almighty deals with her in a stern but down-to-earth manner. “Lord, Thou didst answer stern and low.” He addresses her as “child” mirroring the intimacy and intricacy of the bond that they shared. It also reflects protectiveness and a sense of security. The term ‘unconquered” implies want of experience and therefore, a ‘virgin’ soul. It is possible only by the blessings of God that’s why she makes blind prayer to Him. Joy and pain bring one to near God because they are the echoes of the human heart and explain the meaning of light and shadow. 

 

He assures the poetess that she shall drink of both joy and fame. The word ‘drink’ connotes the act of relishing and quenching of one’s thirst. Love will consume her with fiery passion. Fire is the only basic element with the exquisite quality of cleansing without polluting itself unlike the other elements. The poetess shall be cleansed by pain akin to the flame of purgation. It will purify the dross or impurities from her desire and thereby render it pure.

 

‘Thou shalt drink deep of joy and fame,
And love shall burn thee like a fire,
And pain shall cleanse thee like a flame,
To purge the dross from thy desire.

 

Her chastened spirit will seek salvation. As her soul will be satiated of these extremes, she will now long for peace. In such a stance, it will seek release from its blind, unconditional prayer .The prayer places infinite faith in God without rationalisation. It will be ‘spent’ with time, experience and incessant praying. In such a state it would effortlessly master the secret of His peace. The word ‘secret’ is used to highlight the enigma and aura behind this spiritual transcendence.

 

I, bending from my sevenfold height,
Will teach thee of My quickening grace,
Life is a prism of My light,
And Death the shadow of My face.’

 

Life is compared to the prism of the divine light. Death is the shadow of this divinity, it is the other side of the same coin called ‘life’. A man needs to be qualified enough to experience the bitterness as well as the bliss.

 

Allegory of ‘seven’ : Seven has always been an attribute to describe divinity whether it has been used with reference to phrases like ‘seventh heaven’ or in biblical allusions regarding God’s creation of the world in seven days. He will imbibe in her His ‘quickening grace.’ His grace is all-encompassing, flexible and swift, and hence the adjective “quickeining”. Life is but a prism of His light where the white light (symbolic of purity) enters the realm of the earth and fills our life with different hues and colours. Death is the shadow of his face as destruction is inevitable for creation, meaningful change and procreation.

Disclaimer: Images have been incorporated from the Google sites.