Sandhya: Or, Songs of Twilight

Dhan Gopal Mukerji

• Publisher: Mint Editions
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781513223452
• eBook ISBN: 9781513223452
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Asian Poetry
• Index: Literature

Sandhya, or Songs of Twilight (1917) is a poetry collection by Dhan Gopal Mukerji. Published while Mukerji was a young student in California, Sandhya, or Songs of Twilight is the second collection of poems from the first Indian writer to gain a popular audience in the United States. Lyrical and romantic, Mukerji's poems capture his commitment to beauty while maintaining his sense of isolation and exile as a young man living far from home. In "Symbolism, " the collection's opening poem, Mukerji is a poet in search of a song: "Tongueless the bell! / Lute without a song! / It is not night / It is God's dawn, / Silence its unending song." Desperate for the beauty and truth of the world outside "pain's window, " he finds "Faith's candle lit, " lighting "Eternity's scroll" for the soul to read at last. Lyrically gifted and profoundly mysterious, Mukerji presents his creative process as a struggle with human emotions. Later, he grounds his feeling in the country he left behind: "O, frail, faint call which I seek to echo! / O, breath of love laden with the aroma of my soul! / Why seek I ever without, O guest at my door?" In "After a Bengali Song, " he provides a powerful image of isolation and longing from a heart that remains "without" for as long as his exile continues. Although he never returned to his native country, Mukerji left an inspiring legacy through his literary achievement and unwavering commitment to Indian independence. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Dhan Gopal Mukerji's Sandhya, or Songs of Twilight is a classic of Indian American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• 1. Symbolism
• 2. Source of Singing
• 3. “With Purple Shadows the Mist Measures the Infinite Sea”
• 4. “O, Old! O, New!”
• 5. “The Far Away Called Her”
• 6. Lassitude
• 7. “Ah! Pale Cool Lips that Burn”
• 8. Forlorn
• 9. After a Bengali Song
• 10. Moonrise
• 11. At Ventura, California
• 12. “The Same Air that You Breathe”
• 13. “Why This Return?”
• 14. “By the Verge of the Woodland”
• 15. The Dream of His Soul
• 16. The Eurasian
• 17. “In the Perfumed Shrine of Love”
• 18. The Infirm Beggar Sings
• 19. “Kiss, My Love, Kiss”
• 20. Color-Harmonies
• 21. Sanatan (The Absolute)
• 22. Coming of the Fog
• 23. “In Love’s Afterglow, Full of Stars”
• 24. The End
• 25. The Confluence
• 26. “In the Deeps of Dream”
• 27. To Leo B. Mihan
• 28. Chopin’s Funeral March
• 29. “In the Golden Afterglow You Lay”
• 30. Henrik Ibsen
• 31. After Hearing “My Old Kentucky Home”
• 32. The Coming of the Tide of Night
• 33. Dead Love
• 34. “It is the Same Twilight, Dear”
• 35. Weariness
• 36. “A Call, Not a Song”
• 37. Remorse
• 38. Poet
• 39. Wanderer
• 40. At Dawn
• 41. “From Her Many-Colored Bow Nature”
• 42. “If Words Fail, Song Will Come”
• 43. Rainy Night
• 44. Ghosts
• 45. Rain
• 46. Evening Worship
• 47. “The Rosy Mist Stilly Polishes the Round Mirror”
• 48. “The Sun’s Golden Spear”
• 49. Truce
• 50. A Parallel
• 51. “‘Nothing Endures,’ You Said”
• 52. Disappointment
• 53. Buddha
• 54. “Ask Me Not to Stand at Thy Friendship’s Gate”
• 55. “Golden Vines They”
• 56. At Sundown
• 57. “Tears Well Out From My Heart”
• 58. “At Last Thou Comest”
• 59. “The Lingering Light of the Sun”
• 60. “I Have Drunk Your Tears With Insatiate Lips”
• 61. Sound Butterflies (In a Fountain)
• 62. “Even in Sadness Thou Art Beside Me”
• 63. “By the Sea of Sleep Walks White-Robed Night”
• 64. Farewell (After a Hindustani Song)
• 65. Satiety
• 66. “Drowsy the Noonday Air”
• 67. Chatterton
• 68. “A Summer Song it was”
• 69. “Who Knows”
• 70. The First Vision
• 71. Shanti
• A Note About the Author
• A Note from the Publisher