THE
ORPHAN GIRL:
(INDIAN
WRITING IN ENGLISH)
-HENRY
LOUIS VIVIAN DEROZIO:
INTRODUCTION
TO THE ORPHAN GIRL:
The poem, The Orphan Girl is written by very famous Indian
Poet Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (H.L.V. Derozio). This poem is about a
young orphan girl and the poet is concerned about her future. The young girl
father died in war and her mother is died in the grief of his husband death and
she is left orphan.
THE ORPHAN GIRL POEM:
Her hair was black as a raven’s wing,
Her cheek the tulip’s hue did wear,
Her voice
was soft as when night wings sing,
Her brow was as a moonbeam fair,
Her sire had joined the wake of war;-
The battle-shook, the shout, and scar
He knew,
and gained a glorious grave-
Such is the guerdon of the brave!-
Her
anguished mother’s suffering heart
Could not endure a widow’s part;
She sunk
beneath her soul’s distress,
And left her infant parentless.-
She hath
no friend on this cold, bleak earth,
To give her shelter, a home, and a hearth;
Through
life’s dreary desert alone she must wend,
For alas! the wretched have never a friend!
And should she stay from virtue’s way,
The world will scorn, and its scorn can slay.
Ah! Shame
hath enough to wring the breast
With a
weight of sorrow and guilt oppres’d;
But oh! ‘tis coldly cruel to wound
The bosom
whose blood must gush unbound.
No tear is so bright as the tear that flows
For erring woman’s unpitied woes;
And blest be for ever his honoured name
Who
shelters an orphan from sorrow and shame!
…….***……
ABOUTH
THE AUTHOR OF THE ORPHAN GIRL:
Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (H.L.V.
Derozio) was born on 18 April, 1809 in Kolkata, India. He was a poet and
Assistant Headmaster at Hindu College, Calcutta, a radical thinker and one of
the First Indian educators to disseminate western learning and science among
the young men of Bengal.
Henry
Louis Vivian Derozio
was son of an Indian Father and English Mother, Derozio was influenced by the English
Romantic Poets. He began publishing patriotic verses when he was 17. His
writings brought him to the attention of the intellectual elite of Calcutta. In
1826 he was appointed instrument at Hindu College, where his reportedly
brilliant teaching influence his students and won him their loyalty. In 1828
his students organised the Academic Association, a debating society that drew
both Britishers and Indians to discussion of religion and Philosophy.
In the
spirit of English Rationalism Derozio criticized the social practises and
religious belief of orthodox Hinduism. Accused of irreverence by his student’s
orthodox Hindu parents, he was forced to resign by the directors of Hindu
college in 1831.Derozio died in 1831 due to cholera. Long after Derozio’s death
his influence lived on among his former students, who came to be known as Young
Bengal and many of whom became prominent in social reform, law, and journalism.
SUMMARY
OF THE ORPHAN GIRL:
In the beginning
of the poem, The Orphan Girl, the orphan girl is described as having
black hair as crow wings and her cheeks were like the tulip, tulip is a type of
flower. Her voice was soft as night wind which is so calm. The girls head was
bright as the light of moon.
The girl’s
father went to war. He fought in the battle bravely but he lost his life in the
battle. The poets says that this is reward for the brave. Her mother could not
bear the pain of her husband’s death and thus she died in the grief of her
husband death. She left the world leaving her little girl alone with no one to
take care of her.
She had no
one left in this world and this make the situation of that girl more pathetic
as she had no home or hearth where she can feel protected and grow-up. The poet
is concern about the orphan girl as the world so cruel and he want
protection for her.
The orphan
girl would certainly stray from the virtue’s way, becoming an erring woman,
miserable, rejected and filled with grief, shame and guilt.
In the last
the poet ends with an appeal to the people to provide her shelter.
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