A Poet of the Spring

BY PADMA RAJU, M. Sc.

The season of Spring has been for ages the source of deep emotion and still continues to be. When we say that even the most prosaic man gets inspired, we need not stress what it means to a poet. All poetry is the outcome of an experience. When a poet looks at a thing it takes a particular shape in his perspective, and in it he sees something which others do not. Thousands of poets may sing about the same thing, but in each of them we find a novel aspect of that same thing. In outward form the poetry of every poet will be different, because his personality will be reflected in it; but if he misses what is eternal and real in any thing, he can no longer claim to be called a poet. It is something like showing the same object through glasses of different colours. The essentials do not change, but the colouring given to it will vary. The purpose of all art and of all poetry is to show eternal Truth and Beauty expressed through the outward form of Nature.

In a recent Telugu poem ‘Vasantamu,’Sjt. Pemmaraju Lakshmipathi, an Andhra poet of note, traces the progress of his realisation, step by step. Herein is contained the essence of his philosophy of life, the loneliness and the emptiness of all earthly attachments, the boundless joy of a higher life which cannot be compared to anything known; how man evolves out of his limitations, and how greater realisation dawns upon him.

The poet is, at first, attracted by flowers, twigs, southern breezes, and the songs of the Koil. He notices that a change is coming over the whole world:

"The old shapes, devoid of all freshness, are slinking away like shadows, and new beauties are springing up everywhere!"

"The world is now dancing upon the swinging waves of an ocean of nectar, which fills the whole Universe like the spotless petal of a divine lotus."

"My mind is flying away somewhere, with the song of this Koil; somewhere on the wings of these hill-breezes, spurning the whole world left behind, perhaps on to the banks of the divine river of Thought."

He loses himself in this joy and questions:

"Where else is heaven except here?"

He forgets everything, fully drunk with the boundless beauty of the Spring, and says, as all drunkards do:

"It is not a crime for a drunkard to drink this sweet honey of the flowers. I will drink and dance, and leave this world in an intoxication. I will play on my Veena till the strings give way, and, in a single swing upon this tender leaf, I will leave behind all this world touching the far-off heavens with my toes."

Then,

"The maiden Nature, tremulous with twigs and flowers, breaks into peals of laughter."

Suddenly, his mind’s eyes are opened to a secret, to a wonder of wonders, to some picture, which, "some day, in some moment, when love was to itself yet young and warm, I painted on my heart’s mirror when thoughts opened like petals of flowers."

He says:

"So long as your delicate form was confined to my heart’s darkness, these worlds seemed fogged. But now, the whole world blooms with flowers, as soon as your playful looks fall on it from the corners of your kind eyes."

The poet has a picture in his heart of his Beloved. She is not a thing which is beautiful, but Beauty Herself. She was there in his heart, perhaps, forgotten for long. He has no clear conception of her but only knows that she is there. As the Spring is coming in, with its variety and profusion, he feels that something in him is being reflected in Nature, and that is how he is reminded of the picture itself. But, even then, Nature is only a means by which he realises her beauty. So long as he could not see it reflected in Nature, it was there in a vague shape only. The Angel of Beauty is something very abstract and she has no definite shape. So, for her realisation, she must be made manifest in the world.

Poetry is not worth the name if it simply describes what is clear to the physical eye. The poet sees Beauty through Nature and describes Beauty’s relation to Nature. Shakespeare would have been long forgotten, had he stopped with simply describing what happened in his days, or the customs and manners of his age. What we look for in Shakespeare is that analysis of human psychology which remains the same for all time. The customs and manners of every country and every age are images of an eternal Truth, reflected in that society and in that age; but they are not the very truth, themselves. A poet uses these outward expressions of truth to get at the truth itself. And just as poetry tries to express the conception of the poet, the outward nature of things tries to express the inner truth.

This idea is very finely put by the poet:

"You have dedicated this Nature to me which is your own wondrous poetry sweet as honey, and sung it in your inimitable melodies through so many Koils."

And then again,

"These are the very buds of your smiles which blossom so profusely on these numberless trees."

"Your joy is expressed in every leaf and every flower upon this earth."

But, Beauty has no colour and no smell. They are all its outward manifestations:

"I am now trying to get beyond this Nature, painted with a marvelous display of colours, and to merge myself in the unfathomed depths of your heart, devoid of all colour."

This has been his ideal for long. The Nirguna Soundarya is manifested in this Saguna Prakriti. The Saguna Prakriti will change. The flowers will fade away, and the freshness of the tender twigs is not eternal. All beautiful things perish, but Beauty does not, because she is the Nirguna Soundarya. The conception of that beauty is very difficult. There are ever so many aspects of that beauty which cannot be reconciled to one another easily. The purpose of all art, poetry and philosophy is to find some relation between the various aspects of that abstract truth.

The process of realisation starts with the self. First, we have to realise what is in us and then we unite it with what is in others or in the non-self. We seek for a unifying force which knits all humanity together like a thread in a garland. So all Sadhana starts with realising what is perfect, beautiful, and immortal in us, and seeing it again reflected in the Cosmic Life. But these two processes are almost simultaneous. We cannot realise fully what is within us, without the aid of the outside world. So when we reach the ultimate point, we realise the truth at the same moment, both in the self and the non-self.

The poet is a little confused at the variety of this beauty and is not able to see its wholeness, putting together all his impressions. He is undergoing a Sadhana, and with it his mind is experiencing a tremendous change.

There are many doubts and fears which a true Sadhaka experiences. The poet is having some vague glimpses of that eternal beauty through the Spring. If this Spring passes away, where has he to look for that beauty? Will it disappear completely? He feels a painful throb at the idea. He begs the Spring to come to him, to save him from this dilemma, to accept his humble offerings. But he does not get any response.

In this desperation, a truth flashes across his mind, which makes him all the more nervous:

"You have wound me up in this cloak of life, with tiny pleasures and pains as its warf and woof, and bordered with birth and death, whereas you stand above in an immortal world. Is it just, my Beloved?"

He is limited and she is limitless. He is mortal; she is immortal. He is confined to this world, whereas she occupies the whole Universe. What a disparity!

The poet slinks away into himself at seeing the vastness of the difference. His smallness and her greatness are very beautifully maintained throughout. He nowhere claims even a comparison. He speaks as if he is subdued to the lowest point, as if he is a mere speck of water in a big ocean.

This gives us a glimpse into the philosophy of the poet himself, his attitude towards the vastness of the world, his simple-mindedness and his modesty as to his own worth.

He realises that he has also to become immortal, endless and unlimited, to be able to be united with her.

All the while the Sadhana is going on.

After a time he feels confident that his prayers will be heard. His love will come to him from her abode in heaven, and will take him far away from this world which is limited by space and time. They will melt into one another in some far-off regions, where even God has no power.

Again he doubts:

"I cannot bear this immense joy in my poor weak heart. Life! If you do not come to my rescue, my tender sister, Death, knows what part to play."

Is it not a vanity on his part to aspire for union with her? But he cannot help it. His mind is going onward, in spite of himself:

"Who can control himself, Devi! Drunkards? Lovers? Poets? Of all those that enjoy your gifts and merge in devotion to you, who can restrain himself? I will bind your sweet form to mine."

The Sadhana is coming to a climax. His whole being is being raised to some unknown heights, and a change is coming all over him. But his anxiety has a speed which has no comparison, not even that of the mind:

"At the mere thought of you, my blood has been transformed into sweet honey and all mortality is giving place to immortality. But, when does that moment come when I can merge myself into thee?"

And it came:

"Let the flowers take the freshness of my youth. Let the Koil inherit my music, and the cool winds my poetry. Then, in an endless ocean of joy, we both remain, formless and limbless, for the one great Union which has no end."

The poet strips himself of all his mortal qualities in disgust. From those peaks of enlightenment, where his Sadhana has landed him, he sees everything clearly. The flowers and twigs no more interest him, now that he has Beauty Herself before him–Beauty, formless and colourless, immortal, endless, pervading the Universe, the ideal of all his aspirations and his poetry.

The poet has a typical way of philosophising every idea. He is very subtle, and even his expressions of love are philosophic. He is not a buoyant lover and his love-making is not spectacular. He appears to be diffident. But the depth of his feeling, the misery through the emptiness of his heart, and his fervent longing, produce such an effect on us that we ourselves

feel that gap momentarily as we read the poem. He does not go on arguing but appeals to our feeling. What strikes us most is his unaffected sincerity. But even in his diffidence, there is an extravagance of feeling which makes us smile at his attitude. A mere child, he is trying to visualise something of which he knows very little, trying to build castles in the air! And so is he; and so in fact are all of us when we think of things superhuman. "Alas! How childish we are!" we think within ourselves. We try to bring every thing into our own limitations and explain all the mystery of life with our meagre knowledge. We think our language is sufficient and we cannot conceive of anything which cannot be expressed through it. Such are we, poor human souls! If an ant is to conceive the picture of God, it will no doubt conceive God as the biggest and best ant imaginable. And man is no better. We laugh at the ant because we know its limitations and we know not our own.

There is an excellent continuity of thought throughout the poem. As the idea comes to a climax, the poet’s expression also improves, and when we come to the last piece, the climax of his poetry is also reached. The last piece, undoubtedly the best, has a whole world of thought in it. It sums up the entire struggle of man trying to emerge from out of his limitations and to merge himself in the unlimited Whole. The ease with which it runs indicates the poet’s clarity of thought, and the immense possibilities of what words can ever express.

Mr. Lakshmipathi can be classed with the great poets of Andhra-Desa. And his style is as beautiful as his ideas.