Canto 26The Spring Child
Book 2. Part Two - Baroda Circa 1898 – 1902
(On Basanti’s birthday — Jyestha 1900)
Of Spring is her name for whose bud and blooming
We praise today the Giver, —
Of Spring and its sweetness clings about her
5For her face is Spring and Spring’s without her,
As loth to leave her.
See, it is summer; the brilliant sunlight
Lies hard on stream and plain,
And all things wither with heats diurnal;
10But she! how vanished things and vernal
In her remain.
And almost indeed we repine and marvel
To watch her bloom and grow;
For half we had thought our sweet bud could never
15Bloom out, but must surely remain for ever
The child we know.
But now though summer must come and autumn
In God’s high governing
Yet I deem that her soul with soft insistence
20Shall guard through all change the sweet existence
And charm of Spring.
O dear child soul, our loved and cherished,
For this thy days had birth,
Like some tender flower on a grey stone portal
25To sweeten and flush with childhood immortal
The ageing earth.
There are flowers in God’s garden of prouder blooming
Brilliant and bold and bright,
The tulip and rose are fierier and brighter,
30But this has a softer hue, a whiter
And milder light.
Long be thy days in rain and sunshine,
Often thy spring relume,
Gladdening thy mother’s heart with thy beauty,
35Flowerlike doing thy gentle duty
To be loved and bloom.