१८५७ का स्वातन्त्र्य समर (वीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर - अंग्रेजों द्वारा छपने से पूर्व प्रतिबन्धित महाग्रन्थ)

THE VOLCANO
independence, and rouse it to action, there could be no
more effective weapon than poetry. When the mass of the
people are possessed by an idea which struggles for ade-
quate expression, the poet, who realises the idea more
intensely than the rest, gives it a beautiful expression,
which at once touches their hearts and makes them love
the idea still more. Hence the great part that national
songs play in all revolutions. The national songs are an
expression of the national soul under the sway of a strong
ideal. They unite the hearts of the people with ease.
When the soul of the land of Bharata was swayed by an
intense passion for liberty, for the protection of Swa-
dharma and the attainment of Swarajya, strange indeed
would it have been if the heart of the nation did not burst
into song. The principal court bard of the Emperor of
Delhi had himself composed a national song which was to
be sung by every throat in Hindusthan, and the Emperor
of Delhi, in person, had ordered that this should be sung
on all occasions of public ceremony. It described the
heroic deeds of the past and painted a pathetic picture of
the present fallen state. In that national song was echoed
the cry of the nation that those persons, whose heads had
been crowned but yesterday with imperially aggressive
independence, should be reduced to the condition of slaves
to-day, that their religion which yesterday was the state
religion should to-day be unprotected, and that heads
crowned recently with glory should, alas, be trampled
to-day under the foot of the foreigner.¹⁴
While the national song was educating the people
about their past glory and their present fall, a prophecy,
14. A mandate had, of late, gone forth from the palace of
Delhi enjoining the Mahomedans, at all their solemn gatherings, to
recite a song of lamentation indited by the regal musician himself
which described in touching strains the humiliation of their race and
the degradation of their ancient faith, once triumphant from the
northern snows to the southern straits but now trodden under the
foot of the infidel and the alien.—Trevelyan's Cawnpore.
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