Can It Be? is a short lyric verse by the Indian poet Manmohan Ghose. It was published in 1926, two years after Ghose’s death. “Can It Be?” is part of a larger sequence entitled “Orphic Mysteries,” originally composed in 1918. The poem, like many others in the sequence, was written in response to the death of Ghose’s wife in that year.
I mind me how her smile was sweet And how her look was gay. O, she was laughter, joy complete! And can she now be clay? I see the roses on her grave They make my sad heart bleed. I see the daisies shine like stars. And is she earth indeed? All lovely things with beauty are, And just deeds shine as just. And faith and truth and duty are— And is she only dust? The great sky keeps it solemn blue: Fresh earth is wildly fair. Can all things be, and I and you,— She nothing, she nowhere?
Like many lyrics of this sequence, the poem has a mood of melancholy and anguish. The poet repeatedly questions the finality of death. Despite the continued presence of eternal values—such as beauty, justice, faith, and truth—the poet cannot accept the fleeting nature of love. It makes no sense to him that one who was so loved can now be “nothing” and “nowhere.”
Ghose’s verse style follows the tradition of the English poets and gives no hint of the poet’s Indian heritage. In fact, Ghose was entirely educated in England, including at St. Paul’s School in London and Oxford University. Ghose returned to India in 1893, but he remained emotionally attached to England for the rest of his life. English was his first language, and he found India “strange and alien.” His poetry therefore expresses nostalgia for a faraway England of the past, as well as sadness for his personal loss.
Ghose’s work shows the strong influence of the Decadent school of literature in the 1890’s. Writers of this group emphasized the importance of beauty and form. Ghose continued to imitate this somewhat outdated English style well into the 1900’s. Unlike his brother, the outstanding Indian poet Sri Aurobindo, Ghose chose not to write about the India that was now his homeland.
For this reason, many critics find Ghose’s work somewhat limited. His resistance to Indian influences, and his attachment to a bygone England, marked him as a minor poet of nostalgia. Nevertheless, critics acknowledge his descriptive powers and his fine ear for the rhythms of the English language. Among the earliest of Indian poets writing in English, he has an undeniable historical importance.
