The Bird Sanctuary - Sarojini Naidu

The Bird Sanctuary 

Feeding on millet

In your quiet garden wakes a magic tumult 

Of winged choristers that keep the Festival of Dawn, 

Blithely rise the carols in richly cadenced rapture, 

From lyric throats of amber, of ebony and fawn.

The bulbul and the oriol, the honey-bird and shama

Flit among high boughs that drip with nectar and with dew,

Upon the grass the wandering gull parades its sea-washed silver,

The hoopoe and the kingfisher their bronze and sapphire blue.

Wild gray pigeons dreaming of a home amid the tree-tops,

Fill their beaks with silken down and slender banyan twigs,

But the jade-green gypsy parrots are only gay marauders,

And pause upon their sun-ward flight to plunder red ripe figs.

In your gracious garden there is joy and fostering freedom,

Nesting place and singing space for every feathered thing,

O Master of the Birds, grant sanctuary and shelter

Also to a homing bird that bears a broken wing.

 

-Sarojini Naidu

 

Sarojini Naidu, a freedom fighter, a women's rights activist, first female Governor of India, an excellent orator and an administrator, is   also fondly remembered as 'The Nightingale of India' or 'Bharatiya Kokila' for her beautiful poems on nature, love, folk life, patriotism and death. Her fondness for birds can be judged from the fact that the titles of three of her four collections of poems have some reference to birds. The Bird of Time, The Broken Wing and The Feather of the Dawn.

The poem is an allegory to a safe place on Earth, where all the species are free and live harmoniously. 'Homing bird with broken wings' refers to herself since she frequently battled ill health.

When I first read this poem, I almost felt as if she was writing after  spending few mornings at Mitthi. For it is exactly how one feels  at the break of dawn amidst the semi wilderness in our backyard. The bulbuls, pigeons, hoopoes , parrots, oriols, peacocks and so many more nesting within the premises get into action bringing joy and exuberance to all around them. 

With more than fifty species of birds and hundreds of species of other insects and animals feeling at home at Mitthi, it is our endeavor to nurture the incessantly abused nature since we believe that it is this very Mother Nature which has granted us sanctuary to rest, heal and flourish.

Oriental Magpie Robin

Pond Heron

A Raptor silhouette

Indian Mynahs

Almost weightless sun bird nest

Reference : https://sg.inflibnet.ac.in