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Rabindranath Tagore
Selected Poetry

My Dependence
The Child Angel
Stray Birds
The Fugitive and Others
The Crossing
Lover's Gifts
Fruit Gathering
My Polar Star
The Kiss
Hard Times
Lord of My Life
Waiting
The Sun of the First Day
My Song
On the Nature of Love
One Day in Spring...
I
Unending Love
The Golden Boat
Baby's Day
The Year 1400
On the Nature of Love
Against Meditative Knowledge
Dedication
The Parting Assurance
The Conqueror
Hold My Hand
Manasi

Later poems

Poems by Rabindranath Tagore, Translated by William Radice

"The Golden Boat"
"Love's Question"
"Unending Love"
"Freedom-bound"
"The Borderland-9"
"The Borderland-10"

My Dependence

I like to be dependent, and so for ever
with warmth and care of my mother
my father , to love, kiss and embrace
wear life happily in all their grace.

I like to be dependent, and so for ever
on my kith and kin, for they all shower
harsh and warm advices, complaints
full wondering ,true and info giants.

I like to be dependent, and so for ever
for my friends, chat and want me near
with domestic,family and romantic tips
colleagues as well , guide me work at risks.

I like to be dependent, and so for ever
for my neighbours too, envy at times
when at my rise of fortune like to hear
my daily steps , easy and odd things too.

The Child Angel

Let your life come amongst them like a flame of light, my child,
unflickering and pure, and delight them into silence.

They are cruel in their greed and their envy,
their words are like hidden knives thirsting for blood.

Go and stand amidst their scowling hearts, my child,
and let your gentle eyes fall upon them like the
forgiving peace of the evening over the strife of the day.

Let them see your face, my child, and thus know the
meaning of all things, let them love you and love each other.

Come and take your seat in the bosom of the limitless, my child.
At sunrise open and raise your heart like a blossoming flower,
and at sunset bend your head and in silence
complete the worship of the day.

Stray Birds

Woman, when you move about in your household service your limbs
sing like a hill stream among its pebbles.

The Fugitive and Others

18

With the morning he came out to walk a road shaded by a file of
deodars, that coiled the hill round like importunate love.
He held the first letter from his newly wedded wife in their
village home, begging him to come to her, and come soon.
The touch of an absent hand haunted him as he walked, and the
air seemed to take up the cry of the letter: "Love, my love, my sky
is brimming with tears!"
He asked himself in wonder, "How do I deserve this?"
The sun suddenly appeared over the rim of the blue hills, and
four girls from a foreign shore came with swift strides, talking
loud and followed by a barking dog.
The two elder turned away to conceal their amusement at
something strange in his insignificance, and the younger ones
pushed each other, laughed aloud, and ran off in exuberant mirth.
He stopped and his head sank. Then he suddenly felt his
letter, opened and read it again.

The Crossing

It has fallen upon me, the service of thy singer.
In my songs I have voiced thy spring flowers, and given rhythm to
thy rustling leaves.
I have sung into the hush of thy night and peace of thy morning.
The thrill of the first summer rains has passed into my tunes, and
the waving of the autumn harvest.
Let not my song cease at last, my Master, when thou breakest my
heart to come into my house, but let it burst into thy
welcome.

Lover's Gifts

2

Come to my garden walk, my love. Pass by the fervid flowers that
press themselves on your sight. Pass them by, stopping at some
chance 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.

Fruit Gathering

A smile of mirth spread over the sky
when you dressed my heart in rags and
sent her forth into the road to beg.
She went from door to door, and
many a time when her bowl was nearly
full she was robbed.
At the end of the weary day she
came to your palace holding up
her pitiful bowl, and you came and
took her hand and seated her beside
you on the throne.

My Polar Star

I have made You the polar star of my
existence; never again can I lose my way in the
voyage of life.

Wherever I go, You are always there to
shower your benefience all around me. Your face
is ever present before my mind's eyes.

If I lose sight of You even for a moment, I
almost lose my mind.

Whenever my heart is about to go astray, just
a glance of You makes it feel ashamed of itself.

The Kiss

Lips' language to lips' ears.
Two drinking each other's heart, it seems.
Two roving loves who have left home,
pilgrims to the confluence of lips.
Two waves rise by the law of love
to break and die on two sets of lips.
Two wild desires craving each other
meet at last at the body's limits.
Love's writing a song in dainty letters,
layers of kiss-calligraphy on lips.
Plucking flowers from two sets of lips
perhaps to thread them into a chain later.
This sweet union of lips
is the red marriage-bed of a pair of smiles.

Hard Times

Music is silenced, the dark descending slowly
Has stripped unending skies of all companions.
Weariness grips your limbs and within the locked horizons
Dumbly ring the bells of hugely gathering fears.
Still, O bird, O sightless bird,
Not yet, not yet the time to furl your wings.

It's not melodious woodlands but the leaps and falls
Of an ocean's drowsy booming,
Not a grove bedecked with flowers but a tumult flecked with foam.
Where is the shore that stored your buds and leaves?
Where the nest and the branch's hold?
Still, O bird, my sightless bird,
Not yet, not yet the time to furl your wings.

Stretching in front of you the night's immensity
Hides the western hill where sleeps the distant sun;
Still with bated breath the world is counting time and swimming
Across the shoreless dark a crescent moon
Has thinly just appeared upon the dim horizon.
--But O my bird, O sightless bird,
Not yet, not yet the time to furl your wings.

From upper skies the stars with pointing fingers
Intently watch your course and death's impatience
Lashes at you from the deeps in swirling waves ;
And sad entreaties line the farthest shore
With hands outstretched and crooning ' Come, O come ! '
Still, O bird, O sightless bird,
Not yet, not yet the time to furl your wings.

All that is past: your fears and loves and hopes ;
All that is lost: your words and lamentation ;
No longer yours a home nor a bed composed of flowers.
For wings are all you have, and the sky's broadening countryard,
And the dawn steeped in darkness, lacking all direction.
Dear bird, my sightless bird,
Not yet, not yet the time to furl your wings!

(tr. by Buddhadeva Bose)

Lord of My Life

Thou who art the innermost Spirit of my being,
art thou pleased, Lord of my Life?
For I give to thee my cup filled with all
the pain and delight that the crushed
grapes of my heart had surrendered,
I wove with rhythm of colors and song cover for thy bed,
And with the molten gold of my desires
I fashioned playthings for thy passing hours.
I know not why thou chosest me for thy partner,
Lord of my life.

Didst thou store my days and nights,
my deeds and dreams for the alchemy of thy art,
and string in the chain of thy music my songs of autumn and spring,
and gather the flowers from my mature moments for thy crown?

I see thine eyes gazing at the dark of my heart,
Lord of my life,
I wonder if my failure and wrongs are forgiven.
For many were my days without service
and nights of forgetfulness; futile were the flowers
that faded in the shade not offered to thee.

Often the tied strings of my lute slackened
at the strains of thy tunes.
And often at the ruin of wasted hours
my desolate evenings were filled with tears.

But have my days come to their end at last,
Lord of my life, while my arms round thee
grow limp, my kisses losing their truth?
Then break up the meeting of this languid day!*
Renew the old in me in fresh forms of delight;
and let the wedding come once again in
a new ceremony of life.

Waiting

The song I came to sing
remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing
and in unstringing my instrument.

The time has not come true,
the words have not been rightly set;
only there is the agony
of wishing in my heart.....

I have not seen his face,
nor have I listened to his voice;
only I have heard his gentle footsteps
from the road before my house.....

But the lamp has not been lit
and I cannot ask him into my house;
I live in the hope of meeting with him;
but this meeting is not yet.

The Sun of the First Day

The sun of the first day
Put the question
To the new manifestation of life-
Who are you?
There was no answer.
Years passed by.

The last sun of the last day
Uttered the question
on the shore of the western sea
In the hush of evening-
Who are you?
No answer came again.

My Song

This song of mine will wind its music around you,
my child, like the fond arms of love.

The song of mine will touch your forehead
like a kiss of blessing.

When you are alone it will sit by your side and
whisper in your ear, when you are in the crowd
it will fence you about with aloofness.

My song will be like a pair of wings to your dreams,
it will transport your heart to the verge of the unknown.

It will be like the faithful star overhead
when dark night is over your road.

My song will sit in the pupils of your eyes,
and will carry your sight into the heart of things.

And when my voice is silenced in death,
my song will speak in your living heart.

On the Nature of Love

The night is black and the forest has no end;
a million people thread it in a million ways.
We have trysts to keep in the darkness, but where
or with whom - of that we are unaware.
But we have this faith - that a lifetime's bliss
will appear any minute, with a smile upon its lips.
Scents, touches, sounds, snatches of songs
brush us, pass us, give us delightful shocks.
Then peradventure there's a flash of lightning:
whomever I see that instant I fall in love with.
I call that person and cry: `This life is blest!
for your sake such miles have I traversed!'
All those others who came close and moved off
in the darkness - I don't know if they exist or not.

One Day in Spring...

One day in spring, a woman came
In my lonely woods,
In the lovely form of the Beloved.
Came, to give to my songs, melodies,
To give to my dreams, sweetness.
Suddenly a wild wave
Broke over my heart's shores
And drowned all language.
To my lips no name came,
She stood beneath the tree, turned,
Glanced at my face, made sad with pain,
And with quick steps, came and sat by me.
Taking my hands in hers, she said:
'You do not know me, nor I you--
I wonder how this could be?'
I said:
'We two shall build, a bridge for ever
Between two beings, each to the other unknown,
This eager wonder is at the heart of things.'

The cry that is in my heart is also the cry of her heart;
The thread with which she binds me binds her too.
Her have I sought everywhere,
Her have I worshipped within me,
Hidden in that worship she has sought me too.
Crossing the wide oceans, she came to steal my heart.
She forgot to return, having lost her own.
Her own charms play traitor to her,
She spreads her net, knowing not
Whether she will catch or be caught.

I

I wonder if I know him
In whose speech is my voice,
In whose movement is my being,
Whose skill is in my lines,
Whose melody is in my songs
In joy and sorrow.
I thought he was chained within me,
Contained by tears and laughter,
Work and play.
I thought he was my very self
Coming to an end with my death.
Why then in a flood of joy do I feel him
In the sight and touch of my beloved?
This 'I' beyond self I found
On the shores of the shining sea.
Therefore I know
This'I' is not imprisoned within my bounds.
Losing myself, I find him
Beyond the borders of time and space.
Through the Ages
I come to know his Shining Self
In the Iffe of the seeker,
In the voice of the poet.
From the dark clouds pour the rains.
I sit and think:
Bearing so many forms, so many names,
I come down, crossing the threshold
Of countless births and deaths.
The Supreme undivided, complete in himself,
Embracing past and present,
Dwells in Man.
Within Him I shall find myself -
The 'I' that reaches everywhere.

Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,
the distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

The Golden Boat

Clouds rumbling in the sky; teeming rain.
I sit on the river bank, sad and alone.
The sheaves lie gathered,harvest has ended,
The river is swollen and fierce in its flow.
As we cut the paddy it started to rain.

One small paddy-field, no one but me -
Flood-waters twisting and swirling everywhere.
Trees on the far bank;smear shadows like ink
On a village painted on deep morning grey.
On this side a paddy-field, no one but me.

Who is this, steering close to the shore
Singing? I feel that she is someone I know.
The sails are filled wide,she gazes ahead,
Waves break helplessly against the boat each side.
I watch and feel I have seen her face before.

Oh to what foreign land do you sail?
Come to the bank and moor your boat for a while.
Go where you want to,give where you care to,
But come to the bank a moment, show your smile -
Take away my golden paddy when you sail.

Take it, take as much as you can load.
Is there more? No, none, I have put it aboard.
My intense labour here by the river -
I have parted with it all, layer upon layer;
Now take me as well, be kind, take me aboard.

No room, no room, the boat is too small.
Loaded with my gold paddy, the boat is full.
Across the rain-sky clouds heave to and fro,
On the bare river-bank, I remain alone -
What had has gone: the golden boat took all.

Baby's Day

IF baby only wanted to, he could fly up to heaven this moment.
It is not for nothing that he does not leave us.
He loves to rest his head on mother's bosom, and cannot ever bear to lose sight of her.

Baby knows all manner of wise words, though few on earth can understand their meaning.
It is not for nothing that he never wants to speak.
The one thing he wants is to learn mother's words from mother's lips. That is why he looks so innocent.

Baby had a heap of gold and pearls, yet he came like a beggar on to this earth.
It is not for nothing he came in such a disguise.
This dear little naked mendicant pretends to be utterly helpless, so that he may beg for mother's wealth of love.

Baby was so free from every tie in the land of the tiny crescent moon.
It was not for nothing he gave up his freedom.
He knows that there is room for endless joy in mother's little corner of a heart, and it is sweeter far than liberty to be caught and pressed in her dear arms.

Baby never knew how to cry. He dwelt in the land of perfect bliss.
It is not for nothing he has chosen to shed tears.
Though with the smile of his dear face he draws mother's yearning heart to him, yet his little cries over tiny troubles weave the double bond of pity and love.

The Year 1400

A hundred years from today
who are you, sitting, reading a poem of mine,
under curiosity’s sway -
a hundred years from today?

Not the least portion
of this young spring’s morning bliss,
neither blossom nor birdsong,
nor any of its scarlet splashes
can I drench in passion
and despatch to your hands
a hundred years hence!

Yet do this, please: unlatch your south-faced door,
just sit at your window for once;
basking in fantasy, eyes on the far horizon,
figure out if you can:
how one day a hundred years back
roving delights in a free fall from a heavenly region
had touched all that there was -
the infant Phalgun day, utterly free,
was frenzied, all agog,
while borne on brisk wings, the south wind
pollen-scent-brushed
had suddenly arrived and in a flash dyed the earth
with all youth’s hues
a hundred years before your day.

There lived then a poet, ebullient of spirit,
his heart steeped in song,
who wanted to open his words like so many flowers
with so much passion
one day a hundred years back.

A hundred years from today
who is the new poet
whose songs flow through your homes?
To him I convey
this springtime’s gladsome greetings.
May my vernal song find its echo for a moment
in your spring day
in the throbbing of your hearts, in the buzzing of your bees,
in the rustling of your leaves
a hundred years from today.

2 Phalgun 1302 (13 February 1896) From Chitra (1896)

Translated by Ketaki Kushari Dyson. To mark the year 1400 of the Bengali calendar, this translation was read out by the translator at an event in 1993 jointly organized by the Nehru Centre of the High Commission of India in London and the Tagore Centre of London, and held in the premises of the Nehru Centre.

On the Nature of Love
From "Chaitali" (1896)

The night is black and the forest has no end;
a million people thread it in a million ways.
We have trysts to keep in the darkness, but where
or with whom -- of that we are unaware.
But we have this faith -- that a lifetime's bliss
will appear any minute, with a smile upon its lips.
Scents, touches, sounds, snatches of songs
brush us, pass us, give us delightful shocks.
Then peradventure there's a flash of lightning:
whomever I see that instant I fall in love with.
I call that person and cry: `This life is blest!
For your sake such miles have I traversed!'
All those others who come close and moved off
in the darkness- I don't know if they exist or not.

Against Meditative Knowledge
From "Chaitali" (1896)

Those who wish to sit, shut their eyes,
and meditate to know if the world's true or lies,
may do so. It's their choice. But I meanwhile
with hungry eyes that can't be satisfied
shall take a look at the world in broad daylight.

Dedication
From "The Herald of Spring"

Do not ask to whom I offered my songs.
By the wayside dust they are waiting for her
Who could give them value.
Have you heard my songs
And drawn them close to your heart?
I know not your name --
To you I dedicate
The treasures of my meditation.

[168]
The Parting Assurance
From "The Herald of Spring"

She whispered into the ears of the parting traveller
Her last gift, tremulous with love:
"I shall forget thee not."
Her trembling tender voice,
Her moistened eyes,
Gave him this assurance.

The traveller on the open road
Fills his heart with this sweet promise.
He takes it as his sustenance,
This love-longing of the one, left behind.

When darkness will envelop the sky,
And sleep over the earth,
"I shall forget thee not!"
This refrain will echo in his ears.

The traveller on the open road knows:
He who goes, goes for ever!
Those who remain behind,
They seek new friends;
They forget him, who has gone.

Yet while marching forward,
The flute plays the deceitful melody:
"I shall forget thee not!"
This refrain echoes in shy loveliness
In the heart of the traveller on the open road.

[13]
The Conqueror
From "The Herald of Spring"

The day was dull, cheerless the work,
And scattered apart were we,
When suddenly came the tide of love
Sweeping everything!
The languid mind was halp asleep in a dark corner,
When you, the unconquerable, broke open the door,
And love came rushing along in mad revolt!

The rumbling clouds darken the forest,
And the flooded river overflows its bank;
All step aside and make free the path
To your chariot of victory.

Suddenly love comes rushing along,
Carrying in its heart the gift of pain.

Hold My Hand

Deliver me from my own shadows, O God,
from the wreck and confusion of my days, for the
night is dark and Your pilgrim is blinded.

Hold my hand.

Deliver me from despair.
Touch with Your flame the lightless lamp of
my sorrow.
Waken my tired strength from its sleep.
Do not let me linger behind, counting my
losses.
Let the road sing to me of the house at every
step.
For the night is dark, and Your pilgrim is
blinded.

Hold my hand.

Manasi

Do not go, my love, without asking my leave
I have watched all night, and now
my eyes are heavy with sleep.
I fear lest I lose you when I am
sleeping.
Do not go, my love, without asking my leave.
I start up and stretch my hands to
touch you. I ask myself,
"Is it a dream?"
Could I but entangle your feet with
my heart and hold them fast to my breast!
Do not go, my love, without asking my leave.
Tell me if this be all true,my love
Tell me, if this be all true, my love,
Tell me if this be true.
When these eyes flash their lightning, the dark clouds in your breast
make stormy answer.
Is it true that my lips are sweet like the opening bud
of the first conscious love?
Do the memories of vanished months
of May linger in my limbs?
Does the earth, like a harp, shiver into songs with the touch of my feet?
Is it true then that the dewdrops fall from the eyes of night when I am seen?
And the morning light is glad when it
wraps my body round?
Is it true, is it true that your love
travelled alone through ages and
worlds in search of me?
That when you found me at last, your age-long desire found utter peace
in my gentle speech and my eyes and lips and flowing hair?
Is it then true that the mystery of
the Infinite is written on this little forehead
of mine?
Tell me, my love, if all this be true.

Later Poems
of Rabindranath Tagore

Here are some later poems of Tagore. The years of quest for the meaning of life and the search of God has given rise to more questions in the mind of the poet. That disturbs the poet but that does not derail his faith in the supreme purpose of life. The poems of this period open a new Tagore for the reader: a "rishi" who does not preach but asks the most poignant questions. Even in the form, the poet resorted mostly to free verse, free from set rules, from the tyranny of rhyme. The poems went back to the original definition of Indian poetry: "Every sentence with feeling is a poetry." He did not even bother to christen each piece of verse. The reader chooses the name as s/he pleases.
Some of the books of this period are:

"Janmadiney" : On Birthday
"Arogya" : Recuperation
"Rogashajjai" : In Hospital Bed
"Sesh Lekha" : The Last Writings"

POEMS OF THE PERIOD:

The first day's sun
asked
at the new manifestation of being-
Who are you?
No answer came.
Year after year went by,
the last sun of the day
the last question utters
on the western sea-shore,
in the silent evening-
Who are you?
He gets no answer.

(From Rogashajjai, translation: Amiya Chakravarty)

Soon, I feel
the time comes near to leave.
With sunset shadings
screen the parting day.
Let the hour be silent; let it be peaceful.
Let not any pompous memories or meetings
create a sorrow's stance.
May the trees at the gate
raise the earth's chant of peace
in a cluster of green leaves.
May the night's blessings be
in the light of the seven stars.

(From Arogya, translation: Amiya Chakravarty)

Here lies the ocean of peace,
Helmsman, launch the boat.
You will always be the comrade.
Take, O take him to your heart.
In the path of the Infinite
will shine the "Dhruba-tara". (North Star)
Giver of freedom, your forgiveness, your mercy
will be wealth inexhaustible
in the eternal journey.
May the mortal bonds perish,
May the vast universe take him in its arms,
And may he know in his fearless heart
The great unknown.

(From Sesh Lekha, translation: Amiya Chakravarty)

You have covered the path of your creation
in a mesh of varied wiles,
Guileful One.
Deftly you have set a snare of false beliefs
in artless lives.
With your deception
you have set the great man on trial
taking from him the secrecy of night.
Your star lights for him
the truculent path of his heart,
illuminated by a simple faith.
Through tortuous outside
it is straight within,
and there in his pride.
Though men call him futile,
in the depth of his heart he finds truth
washed clean by the inner light.
Nothing can deprive him;
he carries to his treasure-house
his last reward.
He who could easily bear your wile,
receives from you the right
to everlasting peace.

(From Sesh Lekha, translation: Amiya Chakravarty)

On that birthday morning,
With deference
I lifted my eyes to the sunrise.
I saw the dawn
Consecrate
The white forehead of mountain ranges.
I beheld
The great distance
In creation's heart
On the throne of the lord of mountains.
From ages, majestic,
He has preserved the unknown
In the trackless forest;
The sky-cleaving, far-away,
Encircled
In sunrise and sunset.

On this birthday,
The great distance grows in my heart.
The starry path is nebular,
Mysterious;
And my own remoteness
Impenetrable.
The pilgrim moves, his path unseen,
The consequence unknown.
Today
I hear the traveller's footsteps
From my lonely seashore.

(From Janmadiney, translation: Amiya Chakravarty)

------------------------------------------------------------------

Poems by Rabindranath Tagore, Translated by William Radice

"The Golden Boat"
"Love's Question"
"Unending Love"
"Freedom-bound"
"The Borderland-9"
"The Borderland-10"

"The Golden Boat"

Clouds rumbling in the sky; teeming rain.
I sit on the river-bank, sad an alone.
The sheaves lie gathered, harvest has ended,
The river is swollen and fierce in its flow.
As we cut the paddy it started to rain.

One small paddy-field, no one but me -
Flood-waters twisting and swirling everywhere.
Trees on the far bank smear shadows like ink
On a village painted on deep morning grey.
On this side a paddy-field, no on but me.

Who is this, steering close to the shore,
Singing? I feel that she is someone I know.
The sails are filled wide, she gazes ahead,
Waves break helplessly against the boat each side.
I watch and feel I have seen her face before.

Oh to what foreign land do you sail?
Come to the bank and moor you boat for a while.
Go where you want to, give where you care to,
But come to the bank a moment, show your smile -
Take away my golden paddy when you sail.

Take it, take as much as you can load.
Is there more? No, none, I have put it aboard.
My intense labour here by the river -
I have parted with it all, layer upon layer:
Now take me as well, be kind, take me aboard.

No room, no room, the boat is to small.
Loaded with my gold paddy, the boat is full.
Across the rain-sky clouds heave to and fro,
On the bare river-bank, I remain alone -
What I had has gone; the golden boat took all.

"Love's Question"

And is this all true,
My ever-loving friend?
That the lightning-flash of the light in my eyes
Makes the clouds in your heart explode and blaze,
Is this true?
That my sweet lips are red as a blushing new bride,
My ever-loving friend,
Is this true?

That a tree of paradise flowers withing me,
That my foosteps ring like vinas beneath me,
Is this true?
That the night sheds drops of dew at the sight of me,
That the dawn surrounds me with light from delight in me,
Is this true?
That the touch of my hot cheek intoxicates the breeze,
My ever-loving friend,
Is this true?

That daylight hides in the dark of my hair,
That my arms hold life and death in their power,
Is this true?
That the earth can be wrapped in the end of my sari,
That my voice makes the world fall silent to hear me,
Is this true?
That the univrse is nothing but me and what loves me,
My ever-loving friend,
Is this true?

That for me alone your love has been waiting
Through worlds and ages awake and wandering,
Is this true?
That my voice, eyes, lips have brought you relief,
In a trice, from the cycle of life after life,
Is this true?
That you read on my soft forehead inginite Truth,
My ever-loving friend,
Is this true?

"Unending Love"

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times,
In life after life, in age after age forever.
My spell-bound heart has made and re-made the necklace of songs
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms
In life after life, in age after age forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together,
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount
At the heart of time love of one for another.
We have played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love, but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you,
The love of all man's days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life,
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours-
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

"Freedom-bound"

Frown and bolt the door and glare
With disapproving eyes,
Behold my outcaste love, the scourge
Of all proprieties.
To sit where orthodoxy rules
Is not her wish at all -
Maybe I shall seat her on
A grubby patchwork shawl.
The upright villagers, who like
To buy and sell all day,
Do not notice one whose dress
Is drab and dusty-grey.
So keen on outward show, the form
Beneath can pass them by -
Come, my darting, let there be
None but you and I.
When suddenly you left your house
To love along the way,
You brought from somewhere lotus honey
In your pot of clay.
You came because you heard I like
Love simple, unadorned -
An earthen jar is not a thing
My hands have ever scorned.
No bells upon your ankles, so
No purpose in a dance -
Your blood has all the rhythms
That are needed to entrance.
You are ashamed to be ashamed
By lack of ornament -
No amount of dust can spoil
Your plain habiliment.
Herd-boys crowd around you, street-dogs
Follow by your side -
Gipsy-like upon your pony
Easily you ride.
You cross the stream with dripping sari
Tucked up to your knees -
My duty to the straight and narrow
Flies at sights like these.
You take your basket to the fields
For herbs on market-day -
You fill your hem with peas for donkeys
Loose beside the way.
Rainy days do not deter you -
Mud caked to your toes
And kacu-leaf upon your head,
On your journey goes.
I find you when and where I choose,
Whenever it pleases me -
No fuss or preparation: tell me,
Who will know but we?
Throwing caution to the winds,
Spurned by all around,
Come, my outcaste love, O let us
Travel, freedom-bound.

"The Borderland-9"

I saw, in the twilight of flagging consciousness,
My body floating down an ink-black stream
With its mass of feelings, with its varied emotion,
With its many-coloured life-long store of memories,
With its flutesong. And as it drifted on and on
Its outlines dimmed; and among familiar tree-shaded
Villages on the banks, the sounds of evening
Worship grew faint, doors were closed, lamps
Were covered, boats were moored to the ghats. Crossings
From either side of the stream stopped; night thickened;
From the forest-branches fading birdsorig offered
Self-sacrifice to a huge silence.
Dark formlessness settled over all diversity
Of land and water. As shadow, as particles, my body
Fused with endless night. I came to rest
At the altar of the stars. Alone, amazed, I stared
Upwards with hands clasped and said: 'Sun, you have removed
Your rays: show now your loveliest, kindhest form
That I may see the Person who dwells in me as in you.'

"The Borderland-10"

King of Death, your fatal messenger came to me
Suddenly from your durbar. He took me to your vast courtyard.
My eyes saw darkness; I did not see the invisible light
In the depths and layers of your darkness, the light
That is the source of the universe; my vision
Was clouded by my own darkness. That a great hymn
To light should swell from the inmost cavern of my being
And reach to the realm of light at the edge of creation -
That was why you sent for me. I sang,
Aiming in my melody to bring to the theatre of physical
Existence the poetic glory of the spirit.
But my vina could not play the music of destruction,
Could not compose a rdga of silent wrath;
My heart could not engender a serene image of the terrible.
And so you sent me back. The day will come
When my poetry, silently failing like a ripened fruit
From the weight of its fullness of joy,
Shall be'offered up to eternity. And then at last
I shall pay you in full, finish my journey, meet your call.