bangles

The Bangle-sellers

 

Bangle sellers are we who bear

Our shining loads to the temple fair...

Who will buy these delicate, bright

Rainbow-tinted circles of light?

Lustrous tokens of radiant lives,

For happy daughters and happy wives.

 

Some are meet for a maiden's wrist,

Silver and blue as the mountain mist,

Some are flushed like the buds that dream

On the tranquil brow of a woodland stream,

Some are aglow with the bloom that cleaves

To the limpid glory of new born leaves

 

Some are like fields of sunlit corn,

Meet for a bride on her bridal morn,

Some, like the flame of her marriage fire,

Or, rich with the hue of her heart's desire,

Tinkling, luminous, tender, and clear,

Like her bridal laughter and bridal tear.

 

- excerpt from Sarojini Naidu's 'The Bangle Sellers'

Done