Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AT DELHI GATE, by PERCY STICKNEY GRANT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AT DELHI GATE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A blind girl grinding corn
Last Line: "I'll live and toil for thee."
Subject(s): Delhi, India


A blind girl grinding corn,
Beside worn women three;
Her head awhirl, her bare arms torn,
She stared at vacancy.

As fast the stones went round
She cried out bitterly,
"Why kneel I here upon the ground,
Chained to this task and ye?

"I toil but others eat,
In a world I cannot see.
I will arise from this squat seat
And end my misery."

Then one hag, brown and old,
As the wheel ground rapidly,
Toothless, her wrinkled wisdom told
The girl's dark agony.

"The blind with the old must stay.
Your sisters, child, are we.
Men mock us, turn their heads away
And feed us grudgingly."

The girl knelt stiff with rage,
As hooded cobra crests.
"I, sister to your palsied age!
See, have I shriveled breasts?"

The next said: "I have learned
This world was made for men.
A woman's soul by heaven is spurned.
Why will you chatter then?"

The girl sank back. Her moan
Was like a lost soul's cry.
"On earth no lover have I known.
Is there no love on high?"

The third spoke, swift her wheel,
The smooth meal slipping fast:
"Like you at these hard stones I kneel,
Like them my youth is past.

"The fields throb warm with sun,
Cool waters fill the well,
The nibbling kids by their mothers run
And sweet the mangoes smell.

"Like poor beasts, trees, and fields,
We must give something, too.
Child, since all life an increase yields,
Let God give bread by you."

The blind girl grasped her wheel.
"Smooth kids! sweet mango-tree!
Great Lord, whom none can see or feel,
I'll live and toil for thee."





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