The Tree of Life

 

    Broad daylight, with a sense of weariness!
    Mine eyes were closed, but I was not asleep,
    My hand was in my father's, and I felt
    His presence near me. Thus we often past
    In silence, hour by hour. What was the need
    Of interchanging words when every thought
    That in our hearts arose, was known to each,
    And every pulse kept time? Suddenly there shone
    A strange light, and the scene as sudden changed.
    I was awake:--It was an open plain
    Illimitable,--stretching, stretching--oh, so far!
    And o'er it that strange light,--a glorious light
    Like that the stars shed over fields of snow
    In a clear, cloudless, frosty winter night,
    Only intenser in its brilliance calm.
    And in the midst of that vast plain, I saw,
    For I was wide awake,--it was no dream,
    A tree with spreading branches and with leaves
    Of divers kinds,--dead silver and live gold,
    Shimmering in radiance that no words may tell!
    Beside the tree an Angel stood; he plucked
    A few small sprays, and bound them round my head.
    Oh, the delicious touch of those strange leaves!
    No longer throbbed my brows, no more I felt
    The fever in my limbs--"And oh," I cried,
    "Bind too my father's forehead with these leaves."
    One leaf the Angel took and therewith touched
    His forehead, and then gently whispered "Nay!"
    Never, oh never had I seen a face
    More beautiful than that Angel's, or more full
    Of holy pity and of love divine.
    Wondering I looked awhile,--then, all at once
    Opened my tear-dimmed eyes--When lo! the light
    Was gone--the light as of the stars when snow
    Lies deep upon the ground. No more, no more,
    Was seen the Angel's face. I only found
    My father watching patient by my bed,
    And holding in his own, close-prest, my hand.

    Toru  Dutt (1856-1877)

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