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Chapter 38 of 39
38

Eternal India

ETERNAL INDIA

TO M. K. GANDHI.

The following poem was contributed by Mrs. Sarojini Naidu to the “Young India”:

Thou whose unaging eyes have gazed upon The Vision of Time’s glory and decay, Round thee have flower-like centuries rolled away Into the silence of primeval dawn, Thou hast out-lived Earth’s empires and outshone The fabled grace and grandeur of their sway, The far-famed rivals of thine yesterday, Iran and Egypt, Greece and Babylon, Sealed in Tomorrow’s vast abysmal womb What do thy grave prophetic eyes foresee Of swift or strange world-destiny and doom? What sudden kingdoms that shall rise and fall, While thou dost still survive, surpass them all, Secure, supreme in ageless ecstasy?