Analysis of Bande Mataram

Sri Aurobindo 1872 (Kolkata) – 1950 (Puducherry)



Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Dark fields waving, Mother of might,
Mother free.

Glory of moonlight dreams
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, giver of ease,
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother, I kiss thy feet,
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I bow.

Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands,
When the swords flash out in twice seventy million hands
And seventy millions voices roar
Thy dreadful name from shore to shore?
With many strengths who art mighty and stored,
To thee I call, Mother and Lord!
Thou who savest, arise and save!
To her I cry who ever her foemen drave
Back from plain and sea
And shook herself free.

Thou art wisdom, thou art law,
Thou our heart, our soul, our breath,
Thou the love divine, the awe
In our hearts that conquers death.
Thine the strength that nerves the arm,
Thine the beauty, thine the charm.
Every image made divine
In our temples is but thine.

Thou art Durga, Lady and Queen,
With her hands that strike and her swords of sheen,
Thou art Lakshmi lotus-throned,
Pure and perfect without peer,
Mother, lend thine ear.
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams,
Dark of hue, O candid-fair

In thy soul, with jewelled hair
And thy glorious smile divine,
Loveliest of all earthly lands,
Showering wealth from well-stored hands!
Mother, mother mine!
Mother sweet, I bow to thee,
Mother great and free.


Scheme aBBcca bbddeexx ffgghhiiaa xjxjkkll mmcxxBBn nlfflaa
Poetic Form
Metre 101111 1111001 111101 1111101 11101011 101 10111 10110011 1011001 101011 10101 101111 10101 101111 111111011 1011101100101 010010101 11011111 1101111001 11111001 1110101 1011110011 11101 01011 1110111 1101101101 1010101 01011101 1011101 1010101 10010101 01010111 1111001 1011100111 111101 1001011 10111 1111001 111101 1111101 011111 01100101 111101 10011111 10101 1011111 10101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,446
Words 264
Sentences 17
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 6, 8, 10, 8, 8, 7
Lines Amount 47
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 194
Words per stanza (avg) 44
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:19 min read
67

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo, born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose, was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, Maharishi, guru and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule, for a while became one of its influential leaders and then turned into a spiritual reformer, introducing his visions on human progress and spiritual evolution. Sri Aurobindo studied for the Indian civil service at King's College, Cambridge. After returning to India he took up various civil service works under the Maharaja of Baroda and started to involve himself in politics. He was imprisoned by British India for writing articles against British rule. He was released when no evidence was provided. During his stay in the jail he reputedly had mystical and spiritual experiences, after which he moved to Pondicherry, leaving politics for spiritual work. During his stay in Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo evolved a new method of spiritual practice, which he called Integral Yoga. The central theme of his vision was the evolution of human life into a life divine. He believed in a spiritual realisation that not only liberated man but also transformed his nature, enabling a divine life on earth. In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator, Mirra Alfassa, he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He died on 5 December 1950 in Pondicherry. He was the first Indian to create a major literary corpus in English. more…

All Sri Aurobindo poems | Sri Aurobindo Books

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