Awakened ‘Self’

Abstract

This poem is an elegy on the early death of the speaker's beloved wife. It portrays the deep grief and sense of loss. Her earthly life comes to an end, symbolised by the falling curtain, and her soul is imagined as spreading its wings and rising to an eternal realm. The poem highlights the awakening of the self with reference to the Gita about the immortality of the soul as preached by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita. The speaker remembers seeing his late wife in a peaceful midnight dream, in which she appears beautiful, graceful, youthful, and almost magical. Her caregivers appear to be involved in arranging a groom and reconsidering the past one, who is none other than the poet. The poem also suggests that she is destined for a new spiritual or heavenly life, while the speaker remains behind in a world stained by disease, suffering, and death. He feels emotionally separated from her and believes that he is less fortunate than she is, because she has escaped the troubles of earthly existence. Overall, the poem expresses love, bereavement, remembrance, spiritual transcendence, and the painful acceptance of separation.