My Native Land by Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809-1831) is one of the most widely read and appreciated poems composed by Henry Louis Vivian Derozio in which the love for the motherland is so strong and the longing to serve it as a true son of the soil. A Eurasian by birth, one of some mixed descent, his father was an Indo-Portuguese and his mother an Englishwoman. Having been schooled from David Drummond Dharmatala Academy, he left it do some work. His poems fond favor with John Grant’s journal and were published in various periodicals and papers.

A poet, a rebel, a thinker and a debater, he tried to motivate the students when he used to teach as teacher of English literature and history at Hindu College. An educationist and a social reformer, he was ahead of his time, and he strove to set right what ailed our society fraught with social evils and ailments. So fired with patriotic fervor, nationalistic consciousness and poetic passion, he struck a blow to irrationality, superstition and social evils. He had a flair for poetry-writing, a passion for to delve deep into, but luck was not in his favor, and he died at an early age. Had he been alive, he would have scaled heights into the realms of poetry. But the orthodox people could not digest his lessons in liberty, equality and freedom, finally leading to his expulsion from the college. He was the mind behind Young Bengal Movement. The bust at Esplanade tells the whole saga of his life who died and left us behind at a very young age.

My Native Land expresses his love for the motherland which has been compared with an eagle groveling lowly into dust. How has the situation worsened? How was his motherland in the past? Where is that glory gone? Where that grandeur? The poet thinks about it. His country was like a golden bird. How did the invaders rob and plunder it from time to time? How did the country regress into the background? But the spirit is invincible almost. Still, it has something to offer to mankind. The answer of My Native Land we may find it in Tagore’s Where the Mind Is Without Fear.

The poet thinks of how India in the past was! How had its grandeur been! How had its glory been? There was a beauteous halo of glory around her head, and she seemed to be a deity. People held with reverence. But where has that glory gone? Where has that grandeur? The poet thinks over that. Where is that reverence lost now?

Where is that golden bird? It was like an eagle, but the pinion was pulled down at last. The eagle got trapped. Now it grovels into dust. The minstrel has no wreath to weave. The bard has no song to sing. All that glory is gone now.

He is sad to have seen the sad state of his country, the poor plight of it. He wants to go into the depths of time to bring out some remnants of past glory. It had a golden time, a heyday of own. The treasure of it had been known all around the world. The nation was like a golden bird, but invaders looted and plundered the wealth, and it regressed into darkness and gloom.

But he wants to dive into the depths of time to bring out the most sublime things which humanity has not seen before. Those wrecks of sublimity and grandeur human eye can never behold them. The times fled away to bear a testimony to that.

My country ! in thy day of glory past
A beauteous halo circled round thy brow,
 And worshipped as a deity thou wast.
Where is that glory, where that reverence now?
Thy eagle pinion is chained down at last,
And grovelling in the lowly dust art thou:
Thy minstrel hath no wreath to weave for thee
Save the sad story of thy misery I
Well — let me dive into the depths of time,
And bring from out the ages that have rolled
A few small fragments of those wrecks sublime,
 Which human eye may never more behold;
And let the guerdon of my labour be
My fallen country! one kind wish from thee !