In The Forest

by Sarojini Naidu

In The Forest

HERE, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead, 

Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre 

Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red, 

Here let us burn them in noon's flaming torches of fire. 

We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne 

The heavy loved burden of dreams that are dead, let us rest, 

Let us scatter their ashes away, for a while let us mourn; 

We will rest, O my heart, till the shadows are gray in the west. 

But soon we must rise, O my heart, we must wander again 

Into the war of the world and the strife of the throng; 

Let us rise, O my heart, let us gather the dreams that remain, 

We will conquer the sorrow of life with the sorrow of song. 

Transcience 

Nay, do not grieve tho' life be full of sadness,

Dawn will not veil her spleandor for your grief,

Nor spring deny their bright, appointed beauty

To lotus blossom and ashoka leaf.

Nay, do not pine, tho' life be dark with trouble,

Time will not pause or tarry on his way;

To-day that seems so long, so strange, so bitter,

Will soon be some forgotten yesterday.

Nay, do not weep; new hopes, new dreams, new faces,

The unspent joy of all the unborn years,

Will prove your heart a traitor to its sorrow,

And make your eyes unfaithful to their tears. 

Past And Future 

The new hath come and now the old retires: 

And so the past becomes a mountain-cell, 

Where lone, apart, old hermit-memories dwell 

In consecrated calm, forgotten yet 

Of the keen heart that hastens to forget 

Old longings in fulfilling new desires. 

And now the Soul stands in a vague, intense 

Expectancy and anguish of suspense, 

On the dim chamber-threshold . . . lo! he sees 

Like a strange, fated bride as yet unknown, 

His timid future shrinking there alone, 

Beneath her marriage-veil of mysteries.