The Old Woman

 The Old Woman

                                                                                                by Sarojini Naidu

• She was born in 1879.
• She was also called Nightingale of India.
• She was the president of Indian National Congress in 1925.
• She was a great poet and a great cynicism. 

A lonely old woman sits out in the street 

neath the boughs of a banyan tree,

and hears the bright echo of hurrying feet,

The pageant of life going blithely and fleet,

To the feast of eternity.

Her tremulous hand holds a battered, white bowl,

If perchance in your pity you filing her a dole:

She is poor, she is bent, she is blind,

But she lifts a brave heart to the jest of the days,

And her withered, brave voice croons its paean of,

Be the gay world kind or unkind ;

"la Ilaaha Illa -l-Allah,

"la Ilaaha Illa -l-Allah,

Muhammad-ar-Rasul-Allah,"

In hope of your succor, how often in vain,

So patient she sits at my gates,

In the face of the sun and the wind and the rain,

Golding converse with poverty, hunger and pain,

And the ultimate sleep the awaits....

In her youth she path comforted lover & son,

In her weary old age, O Dear God, is there none

To bless her tired eyelids to rest? ......

Tho' the world may not tarry to help her or heed.

More clear than the cry of her sorrow and need,

Is the faith that doth solace her beast:

"la Ilaaha Illa -l-Allah,

"la Ilaaha Illa -l-Allah

Muhammad-ar-Rasul-Allah,"