The Soul’s Prayer (Sarojini Naidu)

Introduction: Sarojini Naidu was one of the most gifted immortal artists whose writings catch the attention of the people not only in India but also in abroad. There are greater poets than Sarojini Naidu but her name is at the top due to her original approach as she sees things with a fresh approach and her enchanting poetry that has thrilled several generations. Her poetry is appreciated, for its bird like quality. In this reference in the introduction of her collected poems published many years later under the title The Sceptred Flute. She is called the nightingale of India.

Critical analysis: Broadly speaking, major themes of Sarojini Naidu’s poems are love, nature, folk talk, life and death and finally patriotism. Her poetry reflects her love for her nation and also sings the joys and sorrows of her people. She emphasizes more on joys and sorrows rather than other themes because she considers that joys and sorrows are interrelated to each other and both aspects of a coin. Both are necessary for the completion of life. Life is surrounded by joys and sorrows. Sarojini Naidu has sharp sensibility and deep insight dealing with these aspects of life.

Sarojini Naidu’s “The Soul’s Prayer” has sharp sensibility regarding to life and death. It is observed that the steady growth of her poetic sensibility and imagination which at first found delight in observing a ‘magical wood’ or a ‘wandering firefly’ towards a serene but delightful mood of mysticism can also be seen in The Soul’s Prayer. The poem reveals the poetess’s mystic vision dealing with problems of life and death. The poem is an imaginary conversation between the conscience and the God. The conscience pleads God to reveal the meaning of life and death.

Saojini Naidu’s poetry deals with the problems of life and death as the life is full of pains, sorrows, confusions and problems. With the problems of life and death Naidu prefers to address God who is the maker of this world and creator of life and death. She writes this poem with the voice of a child who is a girl of 13 years old. Child is none but the poetess herself. “The Soul’s Prayer” presents her faith in God and she 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 and the nature of existence or the law of life and death. Here the speaker is searching for "the inmost laws of life and death

In this way she thinks that if God tells her the laws and mystery of life and death, she may get ready to bear the bitter experiences of life as joys and sorrows of human life with the greatness of God as she appears saying to, “Give me to drink each joy and pain:” The poetess prays to God to fill everything in the whole world, all life's joys and pain at the most intense levels. Not only she craves for bliss in life, but she is ready to keep abreast of every pang of strife and struggle. The poem has also an autobiographical tone when she desires to experience every types of situation in life. She believes that it is only when she passes through the trials and tribulations of life that her souls would be completely thirst of knowledge. Sarojini Naidu further asks God not to give her gift or grief. The knowledge of the grave is mystic because nobody knows what happens at the grave goes beyond one’s ordinary senses; one can’t experience it while in this body.

 

The Lord answers her prayer. Before this, He has stated that He would not disregard encounter both passionate rapture and despair at the same time but promises her to provide her everything, that her soul will "know all passionate rapture and despair...drink deep of joy and fame...love shall burn thee like a fire, and pain shall cleanse thee like a flame." So the Lord will let her enjoy many intense emotional experiences both good and bad.

In the fifth stanza God promises the child to provide everything for what she prays. She is innocent. She doesn’t know for what she is pleading. God informs her that after having experience of all the love, joys and highs and lows of life , her soul would not be satisfied but it will yearn to be released from the blind prayer and then her soul will beg to learn about peace instead of intensity. It will want to know how to leave the fire and flame behind. As Sarojini Naidu writes:

‘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.

None never actually needed to learn through pain, and there was never anything to fear. Mystic mystery is a simple secret, nothing more. It’s God’s peace. At last the poet finds solace in the knowledge that Life and Death are merely the two faces of God-His Light and His Shadow. As the lines show:

Life is a prism of My light,
And Death the shadow of My face.

Here Sarojini Naidu compares life to a prism through which the color of life, including joy and sorrow are realization of the ultimate knowledge is achieved but death is like a shadow when the knowledge of the various aspects of life ceases. In the concluding stanza God bends from His sevenfold height with care to teach His children the meaning of His grace that where the sun has never shone there is also light, His light:

‘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.’

Conclusion: Thus the poem concludes with a belief that life and death are interlinked between one another, reflecting each other. So Shadow and Light are just like birth and death, like night and day, like inhaling and exhaling. Similarly joy and pain are also interlinked within being. The answers received by the soul from the divine force reveal the nature of suffering, love, and pain with mystic vision. Sarojini Naidu’s poetry is a torch light guides that one to understand and face various aspects of life.