A koel’s call, not a human voice, opens the lyric: “A kokila called from a henna-spray: / LIRA! LIREE! LIRA! LIREE!” Sarojini Naidu turns that two-note cry into a summons. The poem tells maidens to rise before dawn, gather henna leaves, and grind them — and it does so by repeating the call until the reader can almost hear the bird. The central idea is not simply that henna is beautiful, but that ordinary leaves, gathered in the early morning and ground in precious mortars, become part of a ritual that marks a bride’s body for her new life. The poem praises henna as a living link between the green world and human ceremony.
The structure is built on recurrence. Both stanzas open with the same kokila call and the same urgent verb: “Hasten, maidens, hasten away.” That repetition makes the poem feel less like a description than like an instruction sung from one generation of women to another. The rhyme is loose and musical — “spray” meets “away,” “old” rhymes with “gold,” and the word “henna-tree” returns at the end of each stanza like a small refrain. The rhythm has a swaying, chant-like quality, as if the lines are meant to accompany the movement of gathering leaves and floating pitchers. The commands pile up — “Send,” “Gather,” “Grind” — turning a domestic task into a sequence of sacred actions.
Imagery gives the poem its color and texture. The scene is dawn: pitchers are set “afloat on the tide,” and the leaves must be collected “ere the dawn be old.” There is water, light, and the fresh green of the henna-tree. Then the poem introduces richness: the leaves are ground “in mortars of amber and gold.” Those materials suggest that this is no ordinary kitchen work; amber and gold are treasures, and the grinding is almost alchemical. The green leaves will be transformed into a red stain, and the poem’s second stanza plays with that contrast through a quick catalogue of reds: “The tilka’s red for the brow of a bride,” “betel-nut’s red for lips that are sweet.” But hands and feet, described as “lily-like,” deserve the red of the henna-tree. The word “red” gathers force through repetition, and henna wins the final place because it belongs to the extremities, the parts that move, dance, and carry the bride into her future.
Sound is central. “LIRA! LIREE!” is onomatopoeic, but it also works like a refrain from a folk song. The koel’s cry and the speaker’s voice blur: the bird calls from the henna-spray, and the poem seems to take up its song. The repeated “hasten” creates urgency, while the long vowels in “amber and gold” and “lily-like fingers” slow the poem down, giving it a caressing quality. Naidu’s diction mixes Indian words — kokila, tilka, betel-nut — with English lyric conventions such as “ere the dawn be old” and “lily-like fingers.” The effect is not decorative; it places the ritual inside a specific Indian landscape while allowing an English-speaking reader to feel its music.
The poem’s significance lies in what it does with a small subject. Henna is a paste made from leaves, but Naidu treats it as worthy of praise poetry. She does not explain the custom; she dramatizes it through sound, command, and color. The maidens are active, the tree is a source of transformation, and the bride is present through her brow, lips, fingers, and feet. By the end, the lyric has turned a plant into a symbol of auspicious beauty, and a morning’s work into an act of communal art. That blend of folk energy and lyrical polish gives the poem its distinctive power, making a poem about a dye feel alive with ritual and song.