Poems on The Dreyfus Affair

1. "Dreyfus"

France has no dungeon in her island tomb
So deep that she may hide injustice there;
The cry of innocence, despite her care,—
Despite her roll of drums, her cannon's boom,
Is heard wherever human hearts have room
For sympathy: a sob upon the air,
Echoed and re-echoed everywhere,
It swells and swells, a prophecy of doom.
Thou latest victim of an ancient hate!
In agony so awfully alone,
The world forgets thee not, nor can forget.
Such martyrdom she feels to be her own,
And sees involved in thine her larger fate;
She questions, and thy foes shall answer yet.


2. Dreyfus

If thou art living, in that Devil's Isle
Inquisitorial and darkly vile,
Where human hearts are pitilessly broken;
Where treacherous hate seems stronger
Than either right or law; where grief hath spoken
Its final word and asks but to forget:
If thou art living, wretched one! live yet
A little longer!
Outcast, forsaken, thou art not alone,
One bides with thee Who shall thy woes atone,
And France, entangled in her toils of hate,
Hearkens a voice of warning.
Martyr and hope of an imperiled State,
Live yet a little! In the East is light—
A pledge to thee that long tho seem the night,
There comes the morning!

3. Picquart

"For love of justice and for love of truth!"
Aye, 't was for these, for these, he put aside
Place and preferment, fortune and the pride
Of fair renown; the friends he prized, in sooth,
All the rewards of an illustrious youth,
And set his strength against a swollen tide,
And gave his spirit to be crucified,—
For love of justice and for love of truth!
Keeper of the abiding scroll of fame,
Lo! we intrust to thee a hero's name!
Life, like a restless river, hurrying by,
Bears us so swiftly on, we may forget
The name to which we owe so deep a debt,—
But guard it, thou! nor suffer it to die!

4. Le Grand Salut

There is a power in innocence, a might
Which, clothed in weakness, makes injustice vain:
A strength, o'ertopping reason to explain,
Which bears it—though deep-buried out of sight—
Slowly and surely upward to the light:
A conscious certainty amidst its pain
That, robbed of all things, it shall all regain,
Through that eternal law which guards the right.
O Dreyfus! Thy dear country has restored
More than thine honour in her hour supreme.
Noble, still noble, though she so could err,
God spared thee to her that she might redeem
Herself, and hand thee back thy blameless sword.
Listen! the world salutes—not only thee, but her!

---Florence Van Leer Earle Nicholson Coates

हम होंगे कामयाब

होंगे कामयाब, होंगे कामयाब
हम होंगे कामयाब एक दिन
हो, हो,
मन में है विश्वास
पूरा है विश्वास
हम होंगे कामयाब एक दिन

होगी शान्ति चारों ओर
होगी शान्ति चारों ओर
होगी शान्ति चारों ओर एक दिन
हो, हो,
मन में है विश्वास
पूरा है विश्वास
होगी शान्ति चारों ओर एक दिन

हम चलेंगे साथ साथ
डाले हाथों में हाथ
हम चलेंगे साथ साथ एक दिन
हो, हो,
मन में है विश्वास
पूरा है विश्वास
हम चलेंगे साथ साथ एक दिन

नहीं डर किसी का आज
नहीं भय किसी का आज
नहीं डर किसी का आज के दिन
हो, हो,
मन में है विश्वास
पूरा है विश्वास
नहीं डर किसी का आज के दिन

 --- Charles Albert Tindley (We Shall Overcome का गिरिजा कुमार माथुर द्वारा किया गया हिंदी भावानुवाद)

सीढ़ी

मुझे एक सीढ़ी की तलाश है
सीढ़ी दीवार पर चढ़ने के लिए नहीं
बल्कि नींव में उतरने के लिए

मैं किले को जीतना नहीं
उसे ध्वस्त कर देना चाहता हूं

---नरेश सक्सेना

इंसाफ की डगर पर

इंसाफ़ की डगर पे, बच्चों दिखाओ चल के
ये देश है तुम्हारा, नेता तुम्हीं हो कल के

दुनिया के रंज सहना और, कुछ ना मुँह से कहना
सच्चाईयों के बल पे, आगे को बढ़ते रहना
रख दोगे एक दिन तुम, संसार को बदल के
इंसाफ़ की डगर पे...

अपने हों या पराए, सब के लिए हो न्याय
देखों क़दम तुम्हारा, हरगिज़ ना डगमगाए
रस्ते बड़े कठिन हैं, चलना संभल-संभल के
इंसाफ़ की डगर पे...

इन्सानियत के सर पे, इज़्ज़त का ताज रखना
तन मन की भेंट देकर, भारत की लाज रखना
जीवन नया मिलेगा, अंतिम चिता में जल के
इंसाफ़ की डगर पे...

--- शकील बदायूँनी

Harlem

What happens to a dream deferred?


Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

---Langston Hughes

And the cities are falling asleep, each in its hour...

Warm wind in the palm leaves, and I think of snow
In my distance province when things happen
That belonged to another, inconceivable life.
The bright side of the planet moves toward darkness
And the cities are falling asleep, each in its hour,
And for me, now as then, it is too much.
There is too much world.

--- Czeslaw Milosz ( The Seperate Notebook)

दीमकें

दीमकों को
पढ़ना नहीं आता

वे चाट जाती हैं
पूरी
क़िताब

---नरेश सक्सेना