SOURCE: "The Poetry of Saojini Naidu: A Critical Appreciation," in The Modern Review, Vol. 22, No. 4, October, 1917, pp. 410-16.

In the following essay, Cousins offers an appreciative overview of Naidu's work.

The almost simultaneous reception within the pale of English literature of two poets, Indian by ancestry and birth, and acutely Indian in conscious purpose Sarojini Naidu and Rabindranath Tagore is an event that offers a fascinating challenge to the student of literature. The challenge is capable, however, of only a partial acceptance: its full implications and significance remain for the disclosure of the future. One special circumstance in each case makes a complete study at present impossible: the chanting sage of Bengal is probably only probably beyond the period of his greatest utterance, but only a portion of his vast work has been put into English: we have, on the other hand, the complete expression of the Deccan...