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An Ode to Night by B.M.Malabari

An Ode to Night by B.M.Malabari is all about the tranquil silence of the night time pervading the spirit.

An Ode to Night An Ode to Night is one of the poems taken from B.M.Malabari’s The Indian Muse In English Garb published in 1876. Malabari who is a Parsee gentleman is primarily a reformer, an educationist and an avid learner of English who came in touch of European scholars and missionaries and who dared to grapple with Indian social evils and muster them to keep at bay. The condition of women troubled the self of the reformer who did not want to sit calm and gave a vent to them through his manageable poetic expression. In his Preface to the book, he writes “It is English that is becoming the current language of India—the soft insinuating English—rich in her song and her science and her philosophy—the mother and moulder of the divinest human thoughts! We resort to her not only from the selfish political point of view, but from the social and intellectual point. We have schools and colleges enough to rear the rising generation of all Asia; and week by week, the English have been sending us the freshest ‘ thought crystals’ of the West, in the form of books and reviews and pamphlets. Surely, then, it is no fault of ours if we turn these blessings to some account! It is in this spirit that the author would have his verses viewed by the Englishman: everything else he would leave to his candour.” (Behramji Merwanji Malabari, The Indian Muse In English Garb, Reporters’ Press, Bombay, 1876, p.4) In the book, B.M.Malabari Rambles With The Pilgrim Reformer, Sirdar Jogendra Singh writes: “ As a boy he came in touch with a warm-hearted Irish missionary, and he found that colour was no bar to mutual esteem when hearts were united in noble aspiration. He often told me, that he felt as if he belonged to both India and England; that to the East he owed his birth and his traditions, but that it was the West that helped the development of his mind, and claimed his love and allegiance equally with his motherland.” (LONDON G. BELL AND SONS, LTD., 1914, p.3) “It was with wandering minstrels he found his way to the world of the muses. He had passed his childhood amid suffering women, and from their own lips heard the story of their woes. He used to tell me that young wives married to men fit to be their fathers, and girl widows came to his mother and poured into her sympathetic ears all their disappointment and despair. He would often sit and listen and weep with them, as the tragedy of their lives obsessed his heart and brain.” (Ibid, p.29) The poem which is in the form of an ode has been addressed to the night which soothes it all, spreading the calm sheet of carpet, darkening the landscape to lull in sweet sleep and the poem is really a befitting expression to that, the intrinsic qualities featured into the texture of it, the latent characteristics of the nightscapes so drawn and delineated it beautifully. Apart from the darker space, with its footfall, things come to a halt from all that hard work and fatigue, noise and clamour, brisk business and hectic activity. It is but the night which is soothing. Man takes a break from all daylong activity. It is but the night which recomposes the mind and the brain and one feels it freshness regained, recovered. This is the time of rest and sleep, a celestial break to enjoy, a cosmic spectacle to see, the wide universe as the thing of creation bemusing us with the stars a-lit with glow and twinkling mysteriously and the fair moon keeps shining with the dazzling milky white moon orbs dancing around. The beauties of the night, the mysteries of the night he keeps exposing, delineating and describing which is but the impact of new learning which he has got it from European schooling and contact. The night comforts as well as shows the dreams. The dreamer keeps dreaming, the workman gets relief from his schedule, routine of work and the break works wonders for him. The night helps him with poetic reflections and random moorings. Who is it who has made the night? During the night one can regain lost health and can recuperate. One can read and study during the night time. Sweet Night! my brief and rare recess ! Protract, in mercy’s name, thy flight. O why dost thou so swift progress! Be not o’er-jealous of thy right. Imperfect death,—unconscious life — Refreshing bath for Mind’s relief— Armistice of diurnal strife— The busy workman’s solace brief— The groaning patient's rich-bought health— The honey-moon of revelry— The earnest of the student's wealth For future gain—-are lodg’d in thee ! Dream-store of youth, still, solemn time ! Delicious for celestial search ; When I, Creation’s charms sublime, Examine, from my lonesome perch. O Night ! my charitable friend ! To me a longer leisure yield, To court my Muse. If thou descend, Day drags me to life's battle-field.