Independence Day Poetry

Poems on India



Here is a brief collection of translated poems on India by some of the renowned Indian Poets...






"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


 
 
Source- India.gov.in