Derozio’s “To India, My Native Land”: Critical Appreciation

Henry Louis Vivian Derozio’s love for India whispered into his ears to pay a homage to the land with the aid of his poem, To India, My Native Land. He is the first poet of Modern India to express his fiercely intense patriotism in poetry. To India, My Native Land is a magnificent sonnet that depicts his pure patriotism. This sonnet also delineates his utmost will to emancipate India from the British bondage. In this patriotic poem, the speaker persona recalls India's past glory before the era of British bondage. She was suffused with name and fame, only glory but no worry during those days. She was over brimmed with cultural and spiritual richness at that time. Anyway, after the British reign, such abstracts went away in the twinkling of an eye. She became bereft of all such richness. In this poem, we come across rhetorical questions. Again, the image of eagle in this poem symbolise the royalty of the land in the then times. Dust epitomises death, decay, mortality and destruction. The bondage of the land under the British rule broke the speaker's heart into bits and pieces. Such a scenario jolted the speaker's inner soul too. The sonnet is rich in archaic expressions. The images utilised to portray the beautiful sonnet are indeed rich, apt and laudable. The poem is shaped in quatrains and a rhymed couplet like a Shakespearean sonnet.