Brief Notes on "The Tree of Life"

• Harihar Das discusses the poem ‘The Tree of Life’ in his book Life and Letter of Toru Dutt.

‘The Tree of Life’ is perhaps the best example we have of the mysticism which lay deep in Toru’s nature. The poem is an account of those daylight visions which come to mortals but rarely. Biographically, it is of interest as the last poem written by her. The opening line is vividly suggestive:

Broad Daylight, with a send of weariness!

It describes how, as the invalid lay with her father’s hand in hers, in that intimate, voiceless communion which the two knew and loved so well,

Suddenly, there shone

A strange light, and the scene as sudden changed.

In the midst of an illimitable plain stretched out before her eyes, the visionary saw

A tree with spreading branches and with leaves

Of divers kinds,--dead silver and live gold.

Beside the tree stood an angel, who plucked some of the leaves and bound them round the poetess’ brow, till its wild throbbing ceased. So wonderful was their effect, that she pleaded for some to be bound round her father’s brow also.

One leaf the Angel took, and therewith touched

His forehead, and then gently whispered ‘Nay!’

After Toru had gazed awhile, wondering and spell-bound at the love and tenderness in the angel’s beautiful face, she opened her eyes upon the world again, to find the vision gone, and her father still sitting patiently beside her, with her hand held fast in his. *

* With reference to this poem, Mr. Dutt copied as follows from his memorandum book for Miss Martin—it is dated as far back as April 16, 1877—‘Yester evening when the candles Toru told me, in very low whispers and with some agitation, a dream or vision which she had had the day previous about 9 or 10 a.m. She was not asleep at all, but quite awake. I know now why she asked me the evening before, where the text was, “And I will give thee a crown of life”…’ x2 (338-339)

• Toru Dutt was heavily influenced by John Milton's Paradise Lost. 

In a letter that she addressed to Miss Mary Martin about the sonnets of Comte de Grammont, Dutt states, “Gramont’s sonnets are so full of deep thought and meaning they remind me of Milton and Wordsworth” (251).

On her reflections of her youth, Dutt states, “We used to read Milton with [Babu Shib Chunder Bannerjea] latterly; we read Paradise Lost over and over so many times that we had the first book and part of the second book by heart” (255).

For the Tree of Life as seen in Milton’s Paradise Lost, see lines 216-222 and lines 411-439 in Book IV.

Milton’s ideas on the Tree of Life mostly came from their mention in the book of Genesis. (Please see Genesis 2:9 and Genesis 3:22- full text available here.)

The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life1

Broad daylight, with a sense of weariness!
Mine eyes were closed, but I was not asleep,
My hand was in my father’s, and I felt
His presence near me. Thus we often past
In silence, hour by hour. What was the need
Of interchanging words when every thought
That in our hearts arose, was known to each,
And every pulse kept time? Suddenly there
shone
A strange light, and the scene as sudden changed.
I was awake:—It was an open plain
Illimitable,—stretching, stretching—oh, so far!
And o’er it that strange light,—a glorious light
Like that the stars shed over fields of snow
In a clear, cloudless, frosty winter night,
Only intenser in its brilliance calm.
And in the midst of that vast plain, I saw,
For I was wide awake,—it was no dream,
A tree with spreading branches and with leaves
Of divers kinds,—dead silver and live gold,
Shimmering in radiance that no words may tell!
Beside the tree an Angel stood; he plucked²
A few small sprays, and bound them round my
head.
Oh, the delicious touch of those strange leaves!
No longer throbbed my brows, no more I felt
The fever in my limbs—“And oh,” I cried,³
“Bind too my father’s forehead with these
leaves.”
One leaf the Angel took and therewith touched
His forehead, and then gently whispered
“Nay!”
Never, of never had I seen a face
More beautiful that that Angel’s, or more full
Of holy pity and of love divine.
Wondering I looked awhile,—then all at once
Opened my tear-dimmed eyes—When lo! the
light
Was gone—the light as of the stars when snow
Lies deep upon the ground. No more, no more,
Was seen the Angel’s face. I only found
My father watching patient by my bed,
And holding his own, close-prest, my hand.

1 For some brief notes on this poem, see this post.
2 Despite being born Hindu, Toru Dutt became a Christian. Edmund Gosse explains this, with his own Christian bias coming through, in his introductory note to Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan: "She was pure Hindu, full of the typical qualities of her race and blood, and, as the present volume shows us for the first time, preserving to the last her appreciation of the poetic side of her ancient religion, though faith itself in Vishnu and Shivahad been cast aside with childish things and been replaced by a purer faith" (xi-xii).
3 Toru Dutt died prematurely at the age of twenty-one. Gosse comments on this in his introduction: In November 1873 they went back again to Bengal, and the four remaining years of Toru's life were spent in the old garden-house at Calcutta, in a feverish dream of intellectual effort and imaginative production. When we consider what she achieved in those forty-five months of seclusion, it is impossible to wonder whether the frail and hectic body succumbed over so excessive a strain (xii-xiii). It is difficult to exaggerate when we try to estimate what we have lost in the premature death of Toru Dutt. Literature has no honors which need have been beyond the grasp of a girl who at the age of twenty-one, and in languages separated from her own by so deep a chasm, had produced so much of lasting worth (xxvi).

Dutt, Toru. Ancient ballads and legends of Hindustan. 2nd Edition. London: Kegan
     Paul, Trench  & Company, 1885. 131-132. Print.