Poems on India

"Where the mind is without fear

and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been

broken up into fragments by

narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from

the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches

its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason

has not lost its way into the dreary

desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is lead forward by thee

into ever-widening thought and action-

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father,

let my country awake."

"Geetanjali"

- Rabindranath Tagore

Better than Heaven or Arcadia

I love thee, O my India!

And thy love I shall give

To every brother nation that lives.

God made the Earth;

Man made confining countries

And their fancy-frozen boundaries.

But with unfound boundless love

I behold the borderland of my India

Expanding into the World.

Hail, mother of religions, lotus, scenic beauty,and sages!

Thy wide doors are open,

Welcoming God's true sons through all ages.

Where Ganges, woods, Himalayan caves, and

men dream God -

I am hallowed; my body touched that sod.

- Swami Yogananda Paramhansa

Is there ought you need that my hands withhold,

Rich gifts of raiment or grain or gold?

Lo ! I have flung to the East and the West

Priceless treasures torn from my breast,

And yielded the sons of my stricken womb

To the drum-beats of the duty, the sabers of doom.

Gathered like pearls in their alien graves

Silent they sleep by the Persian waves,

Scattered like shells on Egyptian sands,

They lie with pale brows and brave, broken hands,

they are strewn like blossoms mown down by chance

On the blood-brown meadows of Flanders and France.

Can ye measure the grief of the tears I weep

Or compass the woe of the watch I keep?

Or the pride that thrills thro' my heart's despair

And the hope that comforts the anguish of prayer?

And the far sad glorious vision I see

Of the torn red banners of victory?

when the terror and the tumult of hate shall cease

And life be refashioned on anvils of peace,

And your love shall offer memorial thanks

To the comrades who fought on the dauntless ranks,

And you honour the deeds of the dauntless ones,

Remember the blood of my martyred sons!

The Gift of India

- Sarojini Naidu