TAGORE, Rabindranath

No civilized society can thrive upon victims, whose humanity has been permanently mutilated.


Distant Time

I know not from what distant time

thou art ever coming nearer to meet me.

Thy sun and stars can never keep thee hidden from me for aye.

In many a morning and eve thy footsteps have been heard

and thy messenger has come within my heart and called me in secret.

I know not only why today my life is all astir,

and a feeling of tremulous joy is passing through my heart.

It is as if the time were come to wind up my work,

and I feel in the air a faint smell of thy sweet presence.

Beggerly Heart

When the heart is hard and parched up,

come upon me with a shower of mercy.

When grace is lost from life,

come with a burst of song.

When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from

beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.

When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner,

break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.

When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one,

thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder

Defamation

Why are those tears in your eyes, my child?

How horrid of them to be always scolding you for nothing!

You have stained your fingers and face with ink while writing-is that why they call you dirty?

O, fie! Would they dare to call the full moon dirty because it has smudged its face with ink?

For every little trifle they blame you, my child. They are ready to find fault for nothing.

You tore your clothes while playing-is that why they call you untidy?

O, fie! What would they call an autumn morning that smiles through its ragged clouds?

Take no heed of what they say to you, my child.

They make a long list of your misdeeds.

Everybody knows how you love sweet things-is that why they call you greedy?

O, fie! What then would they call us who love you?

Brink of Eternity

In desperate hope I go and search for her

in all the corners of my room;

I find her not.

My house is small

and what once has gone from it can never be regained.

But infinite is thy mansion, my lord,

and seeking her I have to come to thy door.

I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky

and I lift my eager eyes to thy face.

I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish

- -no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears.

Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean,

plunge it into the deepest fullness.

Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch

in the allness of the universe.

Endless Time

Time is endless in thy hands, my lord.

There is none to count thy minutes.

Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers.

Thou knowest how to wait.

Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower.

We have no time to lose,

and having no time we must scramble for a chance.

We are too poor to be late.

And thus it is that time goes by

while I give it to every querulous man who claims it,

and thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last.

At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut;

but I find that yet there is time.

Clouds and Waves

Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds call out to me-

'We play from the time we wake till the day ends.

We play with the golden dawn, we play with the silver moon.'

I ask, 'But how am I to get up to you? '

They answer, 'Come to the edge of the earth, lift up your

hands to the sky, and you will be taken up into the clouds.'

'My mother is waiting for me at home, 'I say, 'How can I leave

her and come? '

Then they smile and float away.

But I know a nicer game than that, mother.

I shall be the cloud and you the moon.

I shall cover you with both my hands, and our house-top will

be the blue sky.

The folk who live in the waves call out to me-

'We sing from morning till night; on and on we travel and know

not where we pass.'

I ask, 'But how am I to join you? '

They tell me, 'Come to the edge of the shore and stand with

your eyes tight shut, and you will be carried out upon the waves.'

I say, 'My mother always wants me at home in the everything-

how can I leave her and go? '

They smile, dance and pass by.

But I know a better game than that.

I will be the waves and you will be a strange shore.

I shall roll on and on and on, and break upon your lap with

laughter.

And no one in the world will know where we both are.

…..


Death

O thou the last fulfilment of life,

Death, my death, come and whisper to me!

Day after day I have kept watch for thee;

for thee have I borne the joys and pangs of life.

All that I am, that I have, that I hope and all my love

have ever flowed towards thee in depth of secrecy.

One final glance from thine eyes

and my life will be ever thine own.

The flowers have been woven

and the garland is ready for the bridegroom.

After the wedding the bride shall leave her home

and meet her lord alone in the solitude of night.

Crossing

Have you comeo me as my

sorrow? All the more I must cling to you.

Your face is veiled in the dark, all the more I must see you.

At the blow of death from your hand let my life leap up in a flame.

Tears flow from my eyes,-let them flow round your feet in worship.

And let the pain in my breast speak to me that you are, still mine.

Stray Birds

…..
Release me from my unfulfilled past clinging to me from behind making death difficult.
…..


The Banyan Tree

O you shaggy-headed banyan tree

standing on the bank of the pond,

have you forgotten the little child,

like the birds that have nested in your branches

and left you?

Do you not remember how he sat at the window

and wondered at the tangle of your roots

that plunged underground?

The women would come to fill their jars in the pond,

and your huge black shadow would wriggle

on the water like sleep struggling to wake up.

Sunlight danced on the ripple like

restless tiny shuttles weaving golden tapestry.

Two ducks swam by the woody margin above their shadows,

and the child would sit still and think.

He longed to be the wind

and blow through your rustling branches,

to be your shadow and legthen with the day on the water,

to be a bird and perch on your topmost twig,

and to float like those ducks

among the weeds and shadows.


Losing myself...

I can soar high on the wings of a song in my mind.

Weaving fantasies into vast tracts of lands and unexplored oceans,

I lose my path in the distant shore of quietude —

I get acquainted with the champak blooms in the parul woods.

When the sun sets, I gather flowers in the sky amidst the clouds.

Mingling with the foam of the seven seas,

I reach the shores of faraway lands —

I knock at the closed doors of fairyland in my mind.


Let all the strains of joy

Let all the strains of joy

mingle in my last song.

The joy that makes the earth flow over

in the riotous excess of the grass.

The joy that sets the twin brothers,

life and death,

dancing over the wide world.

The joy that sweeps in with the tempest,

shaking and waking all life with laughter.

The joy that sits still with its tears

on the open red lotus of pain.

And the joy that throws everything it has

upon the dust,

and knows not a word.


Empathy

If I wasn't your little boy,

but just a puppy-dog,

would you tell me off,

lest I tried to taste

rice from your dinner-plate?

Tell me truly,

don't trick me, Mum!

Would you say, "Off, off, off!

Whence has it come, this dog?"
Then go, Mum, go.

Let me get off your lap,

I won't eat from your hand,

I won't eat from your plate.


If I wasn't your boy

If I wasn't your boy,

but just a parrot, your pet,

would you chain me, Mum,

lest I should fly away?

Tell me truly,

don't trick me, Mum!

Would you say, "Wretched bird!

He wants to escape, does he?"

Then let me get off, Mum.

You don't have to love me any more.

I don't want to stay on your lap,

I'd rather go off to the forest.


I won’t let you go

O, my foolish girl,

Who are you? Where could you have drawn such strength

To say so boldly, ‘I won’t let you go’?

Whom in this universe, O arrogant one,

Will you hold back with two small arms, with whom

Grapple, sitting beside the homestead door

With that tired tiny body, only the store

Of that little love-filled breast? Here on this earth

It befits the wounded spirit, with fear and shame,

Only to utter its heart’s prayer, to say

‘I do not want to let you go.’ Who’ll say

‘I will not’? Hearing from your infant lips

Your love’s proud vaunt, the world, taken with mirth,

Snatched me away; only you, vanquished, sat

Like a painted figure tearfully by the door.

I saw and left, dabbing at my own eyes.

…..


Bride

…..

Oh this city with its stony body

Its massive loveless fist has squeezed and crushed

A young girl’s feelings, pitilessly.

Where are the boundless fields, the open paths

the bird’s song, the trees., the shadow?

…..


Come To My Garden Walk

Come to my garden walk, my love.

Pass by the fervid flowers that press themselves on your sight.

Pass them by, stopping at somechance joy

which like a sudden wonder of sunset illumines,

yet elude.

For lover's gift is shy, it never tells its name,

it flits across the shade,

spreading a shiver of joy along the dust.

Overtake it or miss it for ever.

But a gift that can be grasped is merely a frail flower

or a lamp with flame that will flicker.


O Those Colorful Old Days

Those days have left my gold cage

O those colorful old days

They have untied knots of

Pain and joy in so many ways

O those colorful old days!

They will learn the craft of

Writing songs from my soul –

It was their intention

I know, it was their goal!

Without saying a word at this stage

They all have flown away in their ways!

O those colorful old days!

I dream, they are roaming

Around my broken cage

For someone of those days

For someone I can guess.

O those colorful old days!

Is this pain for nothing!

Are they birds of shadow?

Haven’t they flapped their wings?

I have heard sound, I know!

Without saying a word at this stage

They all have flown away in their ways!

O those colorful old days!


Closed Path

I thought that my voyage had come to its end

at the last limit of my power,—that the path before me was closed,

that provisions were exhausted

and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.

But I find that thy will knows no end in me.

And when old words die out on the tongue,

new melodies break forth from the heart;

and where the old tracks are lost,

new country is revealed with its wonders


Who is this ?

I came out alone on my way to my tryst.

But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?

I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not.

He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger;

he adds his loud voice to every word that I utter.

He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame;

but I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company.


Last Curtain

I know that the day will come

when my sight of this earth shall be lost,

and life will take its leave in silence,

drawing the last curtain over my eyes.

Yet stars will watch at night,

and morning rise as before,

and hours heave like sea waves
casting up pleasures and pains.

When I think of this end of my moments,

the barrier of the moments breaks

and I see by the light of death

thy world with its careless treasures.

Rare is its lowliest seat,

rare is its meanest of lives.

Things that I longed for in vain

and things that I got - let them pass.

Let me but truly possess the things

that I ever spurned and overlooked.


Let Me Not Forget

If it is not my portion to meet thee in this life

then let me ever feel that I have missed thy sight

—let me not forget for a moment,

let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams

and in my wakeful hours.

As my days pass in the crowded market of this world

and my hands grow full with the daily profits,

let me ever feel that I have gained nothing

—let me not forget for a moment,

let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams

and in my wakeful hours.

When I sit by the roadside, tired and panting,

when I spread my bed low in the dust,

let me ever feel that the long journey is still before me

—let me not forget a moment,

let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams

and in my wakeful hours.

When my rooms have been decked out and the flutes sound

and the laughter there is loud,

let me ever feel that I have not invited thee to my house

—let me not forget for a moment,

let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my drea


Art thou abroad on this stormy night

Art thou abroad on this stormy night

on thy journey of love, my friend?

The sky groans like one in despair.

I have no sleep tonight.

Ever and again I open my door and look out on

the darkness, my friend!

I can see nothing before me.

I wonder where lies thy path!

By what dim shore of the ink-black river,

by what far edge of the frowning forest,

through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading

thy course to come to me, my friend?”


I Cannot Remember My Mother

I cannot remember my mother

only sometimes in the midst of my play

a tune seems to hover over my playthings,

the tune of some song that she used to

hum while rocking my cradle.

I cannot remember my mother

but when in the early autumn morning

the smell of the shiuli flowers floats in the air

the scent of the morning service in the temple

comes to me as the scent of my mother.

I cannot remember my mother

only when from my bedroom window I send

my eyes into the blue of the distant sky,

I feel that the stillness of

my mother's gaze on my face

has spread all over the sky


Freedom

Freedom from fear is the freedom

I claim for you my motherland!

Freedom from the burden of the ages, bending your head,

breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning

call of the future;

Freedom from the shackles of slumber wherewith

you fasten yourself in night's stillness,

mistrusting the star that speaks of truth's adventurous paths;

freedom from the anarchy of destiny

whole sails are weakly yielded to the blind uncertain winds,

and the helm to a hand ever rigid and cold as death.

Freedom from the insult of dwelling in a puppet's world,

where movements are started through brainless wires,

repeated through mindless habits,

where figures wait with patience and obedience for the

master of show,

to be stirred into a mimicry of life.


Gitanjali – Walk alone

If they answer not to your call,

walk alone.

If they are afraid and cower mutely

facing the wall,

O thou unlucky one,

open your mind and speak out alone.

If they turn away, and desert you

when crossing the wilderness,

O thou unlucky one,

trample the thorns under thy tread,

and along the blood-lined track

travel alone

If they shut doors and do not hold up the light

when the night is troubled with storm,

O thou unlucky one,

with the thunder flame of pain

ignite your own heart,

and let it burn alone.

If they answer not to your call,

walk alone.

Gitanjali 11 - Leave This

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!

Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?

Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground

and where the pathmaker is breaking stones.

He is with them in sun and in shower,

and his garment is covered with dust.

Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!

Deliverance?

Where is this deliverance to be found?

Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation;

he is bound with us all for ever.

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense!

What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained?

Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.


Gitanjali 35 / Where the mind is without fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Gitanjali 39

WHEN THE HEART is hard and parched up, come upon me with a shower of mercy.

When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song.

When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.

When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner, break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.

When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one, thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder.

Gitanjali 69

The same stream of life that runs

through my veins night and day runs

through the world and dances in

rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy

through the dust of the earth in

numberless blades of grass and breaks

into tumultuous waves of leaves and

flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in

the ocean-cradle of birth and of death,

in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by

the touch of this world of life. And my

pride is from the life-throb of ages

dancing in my blood this moment.

The Gardener

…..
‘Ah, Poet, the evening draws near; your hair is turning gray.

‘Do you in your lonely musing hear the message of the hereafter?’

‘It is evening,’ the poet said, ‘and I am listening because some one may call from the village, late though it be.

‘I watch if young straying hearts meet together, and two pairs of eager eyes beg for music to break their silence and speak for them.

‘Who is there to weave their passionate songs, if I sit on the shore of life and contemplate death and the beyond?

‘The early evening star disappears.

‘The glow of the funeral pyre slowly dies by the silent river.

‘Jackals cry in chorus from the courtyard of the deserted house in the light of the worn-out moon.

‘If some wanderer, leaving home, come here to watch the night and with bowed head listen to the murmur of the darkness, who is there to whisper the secrets of life into his ears if I, shutting my doors, should try to free myself from mortal bonds?

‘It is trifle that my hair is turning gray.

‘I am ever as young or as old as the youngest and the oldest of this village.

‘Some have smiles, sweet and simple, and some have a sly twinkle in their eyes.

‘Some have tears that well up in the daylight, and others tears that are hidden in the gloom.

‘They all have need for me, and I have no time to brood over the afterlife.

‘I am of an age with each, what matter if my hair turns gray?’

The Gardener LXIX

I hunt for the golden stag.

You may smile, my friends, but I

pursue the vision that eludes me.

I run across hills and dales, I wander

through nameless lands, because I am

hunting for the golden stag.

You come and buy in the market

and go back to your homes laden with

goods, but the spell of the homeless

winds has touched me I know not when

and where.

I have no care in my heart; all my

belongings I have left far behind me.

I run across hills and dales, I wander

through nameless lands--because I am

hunting for the golden stag.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


YOU HAVE SET me among those who are defeated.

I know it is not for me to win, nor to leave the game.

I shall plunge into the pool although but to sink to the bottom.

I shall play the game of my undoing.

I shall stake all I have and when I lose my last penny I shall stake myself, and then I think I shall have won through my utter defeat.

The Dream

I dreamt that she sat by my head,

tenderly ruffling my hair with her fingers,

playing the melody of her touch.

I looked at her face and struggled with my tears,

till the agony of unspoken words burst my sleep like a bubble.

I sat up and saw the glow of the milky way

above my window, like a world of silence on fire,

and I wondered if at this moment

she had a dream that rhymed with mine.

Lotus

On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying,

and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.

Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my

dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind.

That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to

me that is was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion.

I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that this

perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart.