2. About Toru Dutt
Toru Dutt, despite having a short life, made her poetry to live long as a testimony
of her literary credentials. Toru Dutt, born on March 4, 1856, was a poet,
novelist, essayist, translator, and the first Indian poetess to write in French and
English.
She contributed regularly to the ‘Poet’s Corner’ of The Bengal Magazine and The
Calcutta Review, publishing a series of English translations of French poetry
between March 1874 and March 1877.
Although she died at the tender age of 21, in 1876, she has produced an
impressive collection of poetry and prose within the short period of life.
3. Our Casuarina Tree
Poem by Toru Dutt
LIKE a huge Python, winding round and round
The rugged trunk, indented deep with scars,
Up to its very summit near the stars,
A creeper climbs, in whose embraces bound
No other tree could live. But gallantly
The giant wears the scarf, and flowers are hung
In crimson clusters all the boughs among,
Whereon all day are gathered bird and bee;
And oft at nights the garden overflows
With one sweet song that seems to have no close,
Sung darkling from our tree, while men repose.
4. Stanza One
The poem is an ode to the Casuarina tree that the poetess had in her garden back in her
motherland.
The memory of the tree is the only link she has left with her past and the cheerfulness of
her formative years.
The first stanza describes the tree having rough skin and being garlanded by a vine having
flowers.
It rings around the trunk like a snake. This describes the strength and courage of the tree
which is still standing tall.
The tree seems to symbolize vitality which is transmitted to the flowers which attract
bees and birds to the tree. The whole scene is of a harmonious whole with each part
being inextricably linked to the tree.
5. Stanza One
The first stanza of ‘Our Casuarina Tree’ begins with the image of the tree. The
poet remembers the tree being wound by a creeper like a python. Its hold was
too tight for it had left the scar on the trunk.
The poet further states that no other tree would have sustained this hold, for it is
too strong, but her tree did. Also, the ‘giant,’ the tree has proudly worn those
‘scars’ like a ‘scarf’, representing its strength.
To further describe its strength, the poet says it is filled with crimson flowers in
every bough like a crown that invited birds and bees.
Often at night when the poet could not sleep she used to listen to the music that
filled her garden as if it has no end.
6. Our Casuarina Tree
Poem by Toru Dutt
When first my casement is wide open thrown
At dawn, my eyes delighted on it rest;
Sometimes, and most in winter,—on its crest
A gray baboon sits statue-like alone
Watching the sunrise; while on lower boughs
His puny offspring leap about and play;
And far and near kokilas hail the day;
And to their pastures wend our sleepy cows;
And in the shadow, on the broad tank cast
By that hoar tree, so beautiful and vast,
The water-lilies spring, like snow enmassed.
7. Stanza Two
In the second stanza, new animals like baboon and birds are introduced that
extol the beauty and nourishing nature of the tree.
Even the tree’s shadow provides refuge to the lazy cattle around and flowering
lilies in the water tank.
The second stanza of ‘Our Casuarina Tree’ details the experiences of dawn which
delighted the poet.
Every morning, as she opens her window, her eyes rest on the tree and
‘delighted.’ She presents the picture of the changing scene with seasons.
8. Stanza Two
Sometimes during other seasons, and mostly during winter, she has seen a
baboon sitting on the top branch like a statue waiting to receive the first array of
sunlight.
Whereas, his ‘puny offspring’ plays around in the lower branch of the tree. Along
with this scenic beauty, the poet also experienced the ‘kokilas’ welcoming note.
She has also observed the cows guided towards the pastures and the water-lilies
spring under the shadow of the hoar tree, like gathered snow.
9. Our Casuarina Tree
Poem by Toru Dutt
But not because of its magnificence
Dear is the Casuarina to my soul:
Beneath it we have played; though years may roll,
O sweet companions, loved with love intense,
For your sakes, shall the tree be ever dear.
Blent with your images, it shall arise
In memory, till the hot tears blind mine eyes!
What is that dirge-like murmur that I hear
Like the sea breaking on a shingle-beach?
It is the tree’s lament, an eerie speech,
That haply to the unknown land may reach.
10. Stanza Three
In the third stanza, the speaker turns more subjective in the memory associated
with the tree.
She comments on why the tree will remain dear to her always. Besides the
morning bliss, the tree reminds her of the time she played with her siblings.
The tree, blended with the memory of them, gives her the images of the intense
love they shared, leaving the poet in tears.
The poet mourns for those departed souls as she thinks down the memory lane.
And, she imagines that the tree shares her lose which she hears as “dirge-like
murmur” resembling the waves breaking on a pebble beach.
11. Our Casuarina Tree
Poem by Toru Dutt
Unknown, yet well-known to the eye of faith!
Ah, I have heard that wail far, far away
In distant lands, by many a sheltered bay,
When slumbered in his cave the water-wraith
And the waves gently kissed the classic shore
Of France or Italy, beneath the moon,
When earth lay trancèd in a dreamless swoon:
And every time the music rose,—before
Mine inner vision rose a form sublime,
Thy form, O Tree, as in my happy prime
I saw thee, in my own loved native clime.
12. Stanza Four
In the fourth stanza, the poet presents an in-depth connection with the tree.
Through the image of waves, she takes us to the foreign land which is “Unknown,
yet well-known” where the “waves gently kissed the classic shore”.
Whenever this music of the waves touching the waves rises, it arouses the
memory of the tree in front of the poet’s eyes as she has seen in her youth.
13. Our Casuarina Tree
Poem by Toru Dutt
Therefore I fain would consecrate a lay
Unto thy honor, Tree, beloved of those
Who now in blessed sleep for aye repose,—
Dearer than life to me, alas, were they!
Mayst thou be numbered when my days are done
With deathless trees—like those in Borrowdale,
Under whose awful branches lingered pale
“Fear, trembling Hope, and Death, the skeleton,
And Time the shadow;” and though weak the verse
That would thy beauty fain, oh, fain rehearse,
May Love defend thee from Oblivion’s curse.
14. Stanza Five
In the final stanza, the speaker wants to erect something in the honor of the casuarina
tree.
For those who were beloved, who are resting in peace, loved it. She wants the tree to live
long like those trees of “Borrowdale” making a reference to Wordsworth’s “Yew-trees.”
Also, she makes an attempt to distinguish the trees of England from the Casuarina tree,
connecting to her varying emotions.
The Casuarina tree stands for nostalgia, longing, and memory, whereas the trees of
England reflect her isolation.
The final lines of the poem underscore the idea of a poem as a written memory. The poet
seeks “Love” to protect the tree and her poem from time’s ravage.
15. Our Casuarina Tree
Poem by Toru Dutt
The poem "Our Casuarina Tree" is from Dutt's Ancient Ballads and Legends of
Hindustan (1882).
It is one of Dutt's most famous poems, and it describes a tree near the speaker's
home that she associates heavily with memories of her childhood and her
siblings that have since died, "Who now in blessed sleep, for aye, repose.“
The word "our" in the title hints at this significance—it is not just an ordinary
tree for the poet, but rather a part of her life and an integral part of her
childhood that she shared with her siblings.
16. Our Casuarina Tree
The poem's opening lines describe the grandeur of the Casuarina in minute
detail, standing erect and wearing the "scarf" of the "creeper" that clutches it like
"a huge python."
The tree is a source of life, filled with "bird[s] and bee[s]," though the children
who used to play under its branches are long gone.
This liveliness that surrounds the tree is further detailed in the second stanza,
which tells of a "baboon," "kokilas," and "cows" in its vicinity.
17. Our Casuarina Tree
Still, in the third stanza, the speaker tells us explicitly that it is "not because of its
magnificence / [that] Dear is the Casuarina to my soul"—rather, it is because of
her memories of her departed siblings. At the thought of their deaths and their
past memories, even the tree seems to "lament" and ushers forth "an eerie
speech."
In the fourth stanza, the speaker recalls various foreign shores (namely, "France
or Italy") where she heard noise similar to the tree's mournful sighs, and recalled
the tree and her "own loved native clime."
18. Our Casuarina Tree
As the poem closes, the speaker meditates on the "deathless trees" in
"Borrowdale" that carry the same grim weight as those in William Wordsworth's
poem on yew-trees, which she quotes: "Fear, trembling Hope, and Death, the
skeleton, / And Time the shadow."
By contrast, the speaker tells us, she yearns to return to the Casuarina tree of her
youth, which she hopes will be saved "from Oblivion's curse."
19. Our Casuarina Tree
In terms of its form, the poem consists of fifty-five lines, written in five stanzas of
eleven lines each.
Each stanza consists of an octave of two enclosed-rhyme quatrains, followed by
a rhyming tercet (three lines which rhyme).
Its overall rhyme scheme is thus ABBACDDCEEE FGGFHIIHJJJ KLLKMNNMOOO
PQQPRSSRTTT UVVUWXXWYYY.
20. Our Casuarina Tree
The enclosed-rhyme octave of each stanza allows Dutt to develop a new line of
thought in each stanza, while the rhyming tercet at the end of each stanza
reinforces not only the constancy and finality of death, but also—because they
evoke previous stanzas in their repetition—the echoes of the past that resurface
through memory.
Further, the fact that each stanza ends with a rhyming tercet rather than a
rhyming couplet (two lines) gives the impression of overflow or transcendence,
which mirrors the feelings that the speaker imparts to the Casuarina tree at the
center of the poem.
21. Our Casuarina Tree
The linkage of the speaker's personal life and emotional state to the natural
world is not limited, however, to the Casuarina tree.
For example, the birds and bees singing their "one sweet song" from the tree's
branches provide solace to the poet through the night "while men repose,"
which suggests that the poet lies sleepless at night and can be soothed only by
the rhythms of the natural world.
The "grey baboon" in stanza 2, which sits "statue-like [and] alone" on top of the
tree while "watching the sunrise," also reinforces this idea, suggesting that the
poet too has watched in solitude as the sun rises the behind the Casuarina tree.
22. Our Casuarina Tree
In the third stanza, the speaker makes this linkage explicit as she explains that the
tree's memory is "blent with [...] images" in her head of her departed siblings.
The shared mourning of the speaker and the tree, as conveyed by the "dirge-like
murmur" that resembles the waves breaking on a pebble beach, continues to
reinforce this connection.
In the fourth stanza, this image of the waves breaking carries us to foreign
shores, where "waves gently [kiss] the classic shore" but evoke similar mourning
in our speaker's mind.
This is why, while the rest of the world "l[ies] trancèd in a dreamless swoon," the
speaker stays awake as the music of her youth, the music of the tree, swims to
her in her "inner vision."
23. Our Casuarina Tree
In the final stanza, the speaker's care to distinguish the trees of England from the
Casuarina tree of her youth further shows the way in which the speaker
associates nature at large with her various emotions.
While the Casuarina tree stands in for nostalgia, longing, and memory, the trees
of England reflect isolation and "verse" that is not true to her own experiences.
This final moment in the poem is also particularly interesting because it
implicates the poet herself and the poem itself.
The poet is hesitant about her gift of writing poetry, and she feels that her own
words are "weak," but she appeals to "Love" in her plea for the tree to be
protected from time's ravages.
24. Our Casuarina Tree
This links the poem not only to Dutt's preoccupation with loss, the natural world,
and the complexity of family relationships, but also to her interest in the nature
of the poetic craft and how much of life's complexities can be accurately
captured in a poetic format.
This moment also lends itself to a larger interpretive discussion about how Dutt
envisions the potency of one of her major poetic projects—that is, her choice to
use English verse forms like those used by Wordsworth (who she simultaneously
seems to respect and dismiss in the poem) to describe Indian scenes like those of
the tree and her youth.
25. Poetic Devices in Our Casuarina Tree
The poem ‘Our Casuarina Tree’ in itself is a symbolic representation of the poet’s
memory associated with the Casuarina tree.
Using the subjective pronoun in the title suggests the ‘subjective’ tone of the poem.
In the first stanza, the poet’s description of the creeper’s stronghold on the tree, and the
scare symbolically represent the impact of colonialism on Indian Culture and Philosophy.
The poem uses rich imagery which presents in the description of the tree’s appearance,
description of dawn, and the memory of her loved ones connected with it.
The metaphor used in the lines “The giant wears the scarf,” “trembling Hope,” and “Time
the shadow” and the similes’ “”LIKE a huge Python,” “baboon sits statue-like alone,” and
“The water-lilies spring, like snow enmassed,” that add beauty to the poem and instates
the poet’s feelings.
