The White Snake, a small poetry book of 56 pages having 15 poems, is an outstanding work by Rajendra Prasad Mishra, a product of the BHU in English literature. Soon after his education, he preferred a village life at Khari in Subarnapur district of Odisha and declining to go for a service-wooed agriculture for his livelihood. This decision of the poet itself appears as a dramatic theme.
The book of poetry is dedicated to his daughter, who died in 1992. The Song of the Blue, an elegy written on her death, is a master piece of its kind. As in heaven, of which God is the lord, there I neither fret nor fever nor death; in the world of Fancy, of which the poet is the lord, there is neither fret, nor fever nor death, where his daughter survives as usual dancing and singing tuned to her age now. She would die only when the poet breaths his last. Man or the poet is the God of the World of Fancy, beyond the effect of natural phenomena.
The White Snake and Morning Star speaking of spiritual diminution of man, pollution and alcoholic excess of the day as it was at the end of Dwapara and before the birth of Srikrishna.
The poet uses the technique of giving a lone symbol like ‘breeds of chimney’ to communicate the similarity of situation now and then and say that the deluge is knocking at the door. Ironically, therefore the poet re-calls the noble forces to withdraw.
The Cowboy and The Bowl are a couple of mystic poems. The Bowl speaks of a hope of goodtime to come. The Cowboy is a matured creation of the poet as the idea of the savior is developed in such a way that the abstract seems to be real to touch the mind of the reader.
A small book though, it is impregnated with a world of deep-rooted experience, and words throbbing with meaning and music, impels the readers to brood for long.