Dutt had made since the publication of her French "Sheaf."
It is addressed to the "Casuarena Tree," a tall, graceful tree which grows very freely in Calcutta and its neighbourhood.
But not because of its magnificence
Dear is the Casuarena to my soul.
Beneath it we have played; though years may roll,
sweet companions, loved with love intense,
For your dear sakes shall the tree be ever dear;
Blest with your images it shall arise
In memory, till the hot tears blind my 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 tranced in a dreamless swoon;
And every time the music rose, a form sublime,
Thy form, tree, as in my happy prime,
I saw thee in my own loved native clime.
In addition to all these poems and translations, Toru Dutt left behind the MS. of a French novel entitled Le Journal de Mdlle. D'Arvers.
Both the sisters had been great novel-readers. We may wonder how they found time for reading novels, considering how much else they read in their
