Full are my pitchers and for to carry,
Lone is the way and long,
Why, O why was I tempted to tarry
Lured by the boatmen’s song?
Swiftly the shadows of night are falling
He, O hear, is the white crane calling,
Is it the wild owl’s cry?
There are no tender moonbeams to light me,
If in the darkness a serpent should bite me,
Or if an evil spirit should smite me,
Ram Re Ram! I shall die.
My brother will murmur, Why doth she linger?
My mother will wait and weep,
Saying, ‘O safe may the great gods bring her,
The Jamuna’s waters are deep.
The Jamuna’s rush by so quickly,
the shadows of evening gather so thickly,
Like black birds in the sky….
O! if the storm breaks, what will betide me?
Safe from the lightning where shall I hide me?
Unless thou succour my footsteps and guide me,
Ram re Ram ! I shall die.
Village Song By Sarojini Naidu Summary
“The Village song” is a folk lyric in the form of a dialogue between a mother and her daughter. The daughter is romantic wants to escape from the sorrow and suffering of the real, the actual, and the present into the utopian world of nature and the supernatural.
The mother addresses her sweet daughter and asks her where she is going to? Would she throw away all her jewelry into the wind blowing, and would she leave her mother who has fed her on ‘golden grain,’ i.e., brought her up with such affectionate care? Would she also break the heart of the lover coming on horse-back to marry her and thus cause him intense grief? But the daughter who is fed up with the harsh realities of the mundane world is determined to go away. She would go out to the beautiful forests where the sweet-scented Champa flower is shining in all their beauty, and the Koels are singing. The fairies are calling her to the beautiful forest, and she must go. She hears their call, and she invites her mother also to listen to them.
The mother continues her attempts to make her stay in her world. The world is full of pleasures, there are sweet lullabies and sweet marriage songs, and there is also plenty of leisure and the fragrance of sandalwood. Her bridal dress of beautiful and bright white and saffron colors is being prepared. The delicious bridal cakes are also ready. Therefore she should not go away, leaving behind all these pleasures and causing intense sorrow to her mother and her bridegroom. Thus the mother seeks to counter the romantic escape world imagined by the daughter with an unrealistic picture of the world they inhabit. But the daughter is not to be stopped.
The call of the fairies is much more powerful. She frankly tells her mother that this world’s pleasure is short-lived, and the fun she refers to is fleeing. The sunshine of joy is darkened in no time by the wind of death. The forest’s songs are much sweeter than the songs of the world, and they are also more lasting, So she will go to the woods and enjoy the sweet music of the birds and the streams. She can no longer stay with her but must go for the fairies are calling her.
This charming lyric gives vivid and forceful expression to the eternal longing of the human heart for the remove, the distant and the unfamiliar, or the world that is not subject to the fluctuations of human joys and sorrows is eternally beautiful and sweet. Sarojini Naidu has succeeded in capturing the simplicity and the spirit of the folk song.