Our Casuarina Tree

LIKE a huge Python, winding round and round  

 The rugged trunk, indented deep with scars,  
 Up to its very summit near the stars,  
A creeper climbs, in whose embraces bound  
 No other tree could live. But gallantly        
The giant wears the scarf, and flowers are hung  
In crimson clusters all the boughs among,  
 Whereon all day are gathered bird and bee;  
And oft at nights the garden overflows  
With one sweet song that seems to have no close,      

Sung darkling from our tree, while men repose.  

 
When first my casement is wide open thrown  
 At dawn, my eyes delighted on it rest;  
 Sometimes, and most in winter,—on its crest  
A gray baboon sits statue-like alone        
 Watching the sunrise; while on lower boughs  
His puny offspring leap about and play;  
And far and near kokilas hail the day;  
 And to their pastures wend our sleepy cows;  
And in the shadow, on the broad tank cast          
By that hoar tree, so beautiful and vast,  
The water-lilies spring, like snow enmassed.  
 
But not because of its magnificence  
 Dear is the Casuarina to my soul:  
 Beneath it we have played; though years may roll,      
O sweet companions, loved with love intense,  
 For your sakes, shall the tree be ever dear.  
Blent with your images, it shall arise  
In memory, till the hot tears blind mine eyes!  
 What is that dirge-like murmur that I hear        
Like the sea breaking on a shingle-beach?  
It is the tree’s lament, an eerie speech,  
That haply to the unknown land may reach.  
 
Unknown, yet well-known to the eye of faith!  
 Ah, I have heard that wail far, far away        
 In distant lands, by many a sheltered bay,  
When slumbered in his cave the water-wraith  
 And the waves gently kissed the classic shore  
Of France or Italy, beneath the moon,  
When earth lay trancèd in a dreamless swoon:      
 And every time the music rose,—before  
Mine inner vision rose a form sublime,  
Thy form, O Tree, as in my happy prime  
I saw thee, in my own loved native clime.  
 
Therefore I fain would consecrate a lay        
 Unto thy honor, Tree, beloved of those  
 Who now in blessed sleep for aye repose,—  
Dearer than life to me, alas, were they!  
 Mayst thou be numbered when my days are done  
With deathless trees—like those in Borrowdale,        
Under whose awful branches lingered pale  
 “Fear, trembling Hope, and Death, the skeleton,  
And Time the shadow;” and though weak the verse  
That would thy beauty fain, oh, fain rehearse,  
May Love defend thee from Oblivion’s curse.

The theme of this poem is unity: the unity among the poet, her past,
her family, and her native land. The tree becomes a symbol of this
unity, bringing her home in her mind and in her soul.

Our Casuarina Tree

Summary by Toru
Dutt
The poem is an ode to the Casuarina tree that the
poetess had in her garden back in her motherland. The
memory of the tree is the only link she has left with her
past and the cheerfulness of her formative years.
The first stanza describes the tree having rough skin
and being garlanded by a vine having flowers. It rings
around the trunk like a snake. This describes the
strength and courage of the tree which is still standing
tall.

The tree seems to symbolize vitality which is

transmitted to the flowers which attract bees and birds
to the tree. The whole scene is of a harmonious whole
with each part being inextricably linked to the tree.

In the second stanza, new animals like baboon and

birds are introduced that extol the beauty and
nourishing nature of the tree. Even the tree’s shadow
provides refuge to the lazy cattle around and flowering
lilies in the water tank.

The next stanza builds on the importance of the tree as

new relationships are established. The poetess’
siblings are brought in the scene where she remembers
the playful and cheerful moments that the three shared
under the same tree.

This realization is quickly stunted with the news of their

death (siblings) which is described as a form of sleep.
However, she has faith that they all be reunited after
the brief spell of the false sleep of death. They all will
enjoy the same fun and games in the garden of Eden
in Paradise.
But the poem does not limit itself to the world of unseen
and turns back to the living world. The poetess
describes the lingering image that the tree has that she
senses it even in distant places like Europe. She wants
the tree to be admired in this world for generations to
come. She wants the tree to continuously shine as a
beacon of joy, togetherness and tranquillity.

She envisages immortalizing the magic of the tree and

its unforgettable memories in honour of her siblings.
She even considers her own demise but with a ray of
hope.
She is optimistic that the tree can live through
generations much like the ‘Yew trees of Borrowdale’ in
the words of William Wordsworth. She hopes the tree
can outlive the forces of age and space and be
cherished and celebrated long after she is gone.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF TORU DUTT'S POEM, "OUR CASUARINA

TREE" OR BRING OUT THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL, NOSTALGIC AND
SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN "OUR CASUARINA TREE"

“Our Casuarina Tree is more than the poetic evocation of a tree; it is recapturing
the past, and immortalizing the moments of time so recaptured. The tree is both
tree and symbol, and in it implicated both time and eternity.”

-K. R. Srinivasa Iyenger, Indian Writing in English

Toru Dutt has left behind such a glorious legacy that even today we think

of  her as a marvellous young girl who died before her prime after blazing a trail
ofbrilliance in early Indo-Anglian poetry. She was the first woman writer in
the historyof Indo-Anglian literature. She was also among the first to realize
and affect the much needed rapprochement between the Eastern and the
Western knowledge. Toru Dutt was undeniably the finest flower of Indian
Renaissance that began with Raja Rammohun Roy- the tireless crusader for
English education in India.

The poem “Our Casuarina Tree” is a beautiful symbolic poem

harmonizing both matter and manner in accurate proportion. The tree stands for
a symbolic representation of Toru’s past memory. Apparently it symbolizes the
rich tradition of Indian culture and philosophy which played an important role in
shaping the poetic and aesthetic sensibility of the poets. In Keats’ “Ode to a
Nightingale”, the bird symbolizes the world of art and beauty. In
Shelley’s “To a Skylark”, the bird is the symbol of freedom and liberty.
Similarly, in Toru Dutt’s “Our Casuarina Tree”, the tree connotes the
nostalgic feelings and memory of Toru Dutt. This is the tree under which she
played with his brother and sister- Abju and Aru. So the very thought of the tree
transported her to her golden past days.

In the first stanza she imagined the rugged trunk of the tree to a huge python
winding round and round. The creeper has indented deep with scars up to the top
of the tree. One may also sense a similarity between the tree in the clutches of a
creeper attempting to sap its strength and the three young Dutts in the grip of a
killer disease – tuberculosis. Toru says the flowers of the tree are hung in
crimson clusters. Toru tells us that her Casuarina Tree, a haven for the winged,
birds and insects, is almost visibly alive, alive with the buzz of bees and with the
chirping of birds. This song sung from the tree soothes its listeners and has a
tranquilizing effect on men who relax and rest as the bird sings.

The second stanza is replete with the pictorial and visual imagery of the tree and
the gray baboon and his offspring. In winter a gray baboon used to sit on one of
the branches of the tree watching the sunrise. On the lower branches, the
offspring of thebaboon used to leap about and pay. Gradually, as the sun rises,
the “kokilas” begin to greet the day with their song and a mesmerized Toru Dutt
watches “sleepy” cows that have not yet shaken off their lethargy, on their way to
the pastures.

While in the third stanza, Dutt establishes that it is neither the stateliness of the
tree nor its external beauty that endears to her. She writes:

“But not because of its magnificence

Dear is the Casuarina to my soul:”

The beauty of the tree is no more than an added gift. Its actual importance lies in
the fact that it is a part of the Dutts’ existence, a reminder of family ties, of the
warmth shared by three siblings. The Abju-Aru-Toru bonding was indeed strong
and in Sita Toru mentions, “Three happy children…”  sitting in a dark
room listening to a story and then sighs because she knows that they will never
again “by their mother’s side/Gather”. Like Keats, she had to suffer a lot. She had
seen bitter struggle for life and death, untold miseries after the death of her
beloved brother and sister.

The fourth stanza is highly philosophical. The poet observes “Unknown yet

well-known to the eyes of faith”. Here the term ‘unknown’ denotes
not simply the native home of the poet but also the world of the departed soul. A
man who has the eye of faith can see the unknown as well-known. Yoga also says
that when a man has an unwavering faith in the existence of the divinity through
the art of meditation and poetry, nothing remains unknown to him in the
universe, because he lives on the plain of consciousness, usually felt as vacuum of
the transcendental stage of smadhi. This is what exactly Toru Dutt feels here.
Interestingly Toru’s mystical and spiritual approach to poetry is centered to her
profound knowledge of great Sanskrit epics and scriptures. The music which Toru
refers here is not an ordinary music which we hear in our day to day life; it
is music of the soul, which once it is attained, never dies and continues to vibrate
with the highest percipience in the mind of the seeker. Toru Dutt is not like the
“Skylark” of Shelley, “the scorner of the ground” but she is the
“Skylark” of Wordsworth “a pilgrim of the sky” and does not despise the
earth where cares abound.

At the end of the poem she absolutely transcends the mortal, materialistic and
mundane frame of mind and attains the power of love to overcome the negative
forces of life like death and darkness, terror and fear. In this stanza, the words
and the phrases like ‘trembling hope’, ‘love’, ‘death’, ‘the skeleton’, ‘and oblivion’
are very suggestive. She means to say that a man of unflinching love and devotion
never fears the blows of death. Toru does not express any desire to fade “far
away” and “dissolve”. Their Casuarina tree does not make her long
for “easeful” death. Instead, even though its“timelessness” mocks the
transience of the human world, the tree is to her a support, a reminder of the joy
she once experienced with Abju and Aru.  So, in the final stanza, Toru Dutt, aware
both of Druidism and the customary tree-worship in India, wishes to
“consecrate a lay” in the Casuarina Tree’s honour.

To sum up, the poem “Our Casuarina Tree” shows a perfect blending of feelings
and forms, matter and manner. It contains what Eliot means by his
phrase “unified sensibility”. It is a combination of both the East and the
West. In form, it is very near to the Romantic and the Victorian poems. In theme it
dives deep into the unfathomable ocean of the Vedanta and
the Upanishad of body and soul, life and death. 

Analysis of Our Casuarina Tree by Toru Dutt

Our Casuarina Tree is a poem by Toru Dutt which is about the Casuarina
tree that grew in the poetess’ courtyard and her memories associated
with it.
Summary

The poetess writes this in reminiscence of the Casuarina tree that grew in the
courtyard of her childhood home. The poem opens with a description of the tree,
tall enough to make it seem like it touches the stars, strong enough to continue
growing despite scars on its trunk and despite all this it provides support to a
creeper. And yet she gives it the air of a gentleman when she describes how the
tree is forever adorned with flowers and birds and bees. Thus we see the tree in
her childhood was not only as a paragon of strength but gentle and loved by the
birds and bees.

She goes on to tell us about the mornings in her childhood when she would wake
up to the sight of the Casuarina Tree. Come summer or winter, her morning
would remain incomplete without the sight of the Casuarina tree, often with a
baboon sitting on its crest. She then paints a serene picture of the morning with
the kokilas singing, the cows on the pasture and the water lilies in the spring.
However, the figure of the Casuarina tree stands central in this picture, as it does
in the morning and even in the life of the poetess.
In the third stanza, the poetess tells us why she holds the Casuarina tree dear. It is
not just the magnificence of the tree that drew her to it, but there was an
emotional bond to the tree as well. It was under the shade of the tree that she
and her friends played as children. Whenever she saw the Casuarina tree she was
reminded of her childhood and the time she spent with her friends. She held her
childhood friends in great regard and the tree was a symbol of the experiences
they had. It was for this very reason that she loved the Casuarina tree and would
remember her friends whenever she thought of it.

The poetess, in the fourth stanza, also talks of how the “lament” of the tree can
be heard by her even when she is far away, off the coasts of France and Italy. She
hears this song whenever she’s near the coasts, strolling under the moonlight,
and is reminded of the Casuarina tree. We may infer that in her moments of
peace and calm her memory jogs back to her childhood which is inextricably
linked with the Casuarina tree and she draws up a mental image of the tree as it
existed in its prime, in her childhood. Here we can see that the Casuarina tree is
not only an integral part of her childhood and a symbol of her friendship with her
childhood friends, it is the only thing which has remained static. Each and every
one of her friends have moved on, including her, yet the Casuarina tree remains
as it is. It is the only thing that stands as a monument to their friendship.

Therefore, in the last stanza, she says she would gladly create a monument in the
honour of the tree, for that is how much the tree is beloved to her. She also
wishes that the tree grows for years to come and be counted in the list of the
deathless trees of Borrowdale, which sheltered death and even time. She finally
wishes that her love become so strong that it saves the Casuarina tree from its
demise.

This poem consists of five stanzas of eleven lines each. The rhyme scheme is abba.
The poem, though written in 1881, it is written in plain English and is easy to
understand.

Title
The title of the poem, i.e., Our Casuarina Tree refers to the Casuarina tree that
grew in the garden of the poetess. the tree is a fond memory of her distant
childhood on which she reminisces.

Setting

The poem is set when the poetess is abroad somewhere on the coast of France or
Italy and is reminiscing about her childhood spent in her garden, under the
Casuarina tree, playing with her friends and brothers.

Tone

The tone of the poem is one of remembrance and reminiscence. The poetess
remembers her childhood spent underneath the shade of the Casuarina tree as
she played with her friends. She misses her friends and misses the tree and her
home where she grew up.

Theme

The theme of “Our Casuarina Tree” is about lasting friendships and lost childhood.
While on the surface it seems like the poem is only about the Casuarina tree, it is
more about her friendship with her childhood friends which she dearly misses.
The Casuarina tree is a symbol of their friendship and thus she writes an ode to it.

Symbolism

The title of the poem is “Our Casuarina Tree”. The Casuarina tree here is symbolic.
It was the tree under which the poetess and her friends played in their childhood.
Thus it holds a special place in the poetess’ heart. Even when all of them went
their separate ways, the Casuarina tree stayed as it was. It became the symbol of
their everlasting friendship and thus became dearer in the eyes of the poetess.