Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan

Ballads and Legends of
Hindustan, by Toru Dutt

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Title: Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan
Author: Toru Dutt
Contributor: Gosse Edmund
Release Date: October 29, 2007 [EBook #23245]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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BALLADS AND LEGENDS ***

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ANCIENT BALLADS AND LEGENDS OF HINDUSTAN

BY
TORU DUTT
AUTHOR OF "A SHEAF GLEANED IN FRENCH FIELDS," AND
"LE JOURNAL DE MADEMOISELLE D'ARVERS."
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR BY EDMUND GOSSE.
[Illustration]
LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO. MDCCCLXXXV

"I never heard the old song of Percie and Douglas, that I found not my
heart moved, more than with a trumpet: and yet it is sung but by some
blinde crowder, with no rougher voice, than rude style."
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

Transcriber's Note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Archaic
spellings have been retained. Punctuation has been normalised. The oe
ligature has been transcribed as [oe].

CONTENTS.
Page
I. Savitri 1 II. Lakshman 46 III. Jogadhya Uma 54 IV. The Royal
Ascetic and the Hind 65 V. Dhruva 71 VI. Buttoo 77 VII. Sindhu 89
VIII. Prehlad 107 IX. Sîta 122
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

Near Hastings 127 France--1870 129 The Tree of Life 131 On the Fly
Leaf of Erckmann-Chatrian's novel entitled Madame Thérèse 133
Sonnet--Baugmaree 135 Sonnet--The Lotus 136 Our Casuarina Tree
137

TORU DUTT.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR.
If Toru Dutt were alive, she would still be younger than any recognized
European writer, and yet her fame, which is already considerable, has
been entirely posthumous. Within the brief space of four years which
now divides us from the date of her decease, her genius has been
revealed to the world under many phases, and has been recognized
throughout France and England. Her name, at least, is no longer
unfamiliar in the ear of any well-read man or woman. But at the hour of
her death she had published but one book, and that book had found but
two reviewers in Europe. One of these, M. André Theuriet, the
well-known poet and novelist, gave the "Sheaf gleaned in French
Fields" adequate praise in the "Revue des Deux Mondes;" but the other,
the writer of the present notice, has a melancholy satisfaction in having
been a little earlier still in sounding the only note of welcome which
reached the dying poetess from England. It was while Professor W.
Minto was editor of the "Examiner," that one day in August, 1876, in
the very heart of the dead season for books, I happened to be in the
office of that newspaper, and was upbraiding the whole body of
publishers for issuing no books worth reviewing. At that moment the
postman brought in a thin and sallow packet with a wonderful Indian
postmark on it, and containing a most unattractive orange pamphlet of
verse, printed at Bhowanipore, and entitled "A Sheaf gleaned in French
Fields, by Toru Dutt." This shabby little book of some two hundred
pages, without preface or introduction, seemed specially destined by its
particular providence to find its way hastily into the waste-paper basket.
I remember that Mr. Minto thrust it into my unwilling hands, and said
"There! see whether you can't make something of that." A hopeless
volume it seemed, with its queer type, published at Bhowanipore,

printed at the Saptahiksambad Press! But when at last I took it out of
my pocket, what was my surprise and almost rapture to open at such
verse as this:--
Still barred thy doors! The far east glows, The morning wind blows
fresh and free Should not the hour that wakes the rose Awaken also
thee?
All look for thee, Love, Light, and Song, Light in the sky deep red
above, Song, in the lark of pinions strong, And in my heart, true Love.
Apart we miss our nature's goal, Why strive to cheat our destinies? Was
not my love made for thy soul? Thy beauty for mine eyes? No longer
sleep, Oh, listen now! I wait and weep, But where art thou?
When poetry is as good as this it does not much matter whether
Rouveyre prints it upon Whatman paper, or whether it steals to light in
blurred type from some press in Bhowanipore.
Toru Dutt was the youngest of the three children of a high-caste Hindu
couple in Bengal. Her father, who survives them all, the Baboo Govin
Chunder Dutt, is