Rajani: Songs of the Night

Rajani: Songs of the Night (1916) is a poetry collection by Dhan Gopal Mukerji. Published while Mukerji was a young student in California, Rajani: Songs of the Night is the debut collection of poems from the first Indian writer to gain a popular audience in the United States. Lyrical and romantic, Mukerji’s poems capture his commitment to beauty while maintaining his sense of isolation and exile as a young man living far from home. In “Bhikshu’s Song,” the collection’s opening poem, the poe...