Soul

Senses


Deliverance is not for me in renunciation.
I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.


Thou ever pourest for me the fresh draught of thy wine of various
colours and fragrance, filling this earthen vessel to the brim.


My world will light its hundred different lamps with thy flame
and place them before the altar of thy temple.


No, I will never shut the doors of my senses.
The delights of sight and hearing and touch will bear thy delight.


Yes, all my illusions will burn into illumination of joy,
and all my desires ripen into fruits of love.

Signet of Eternity

The day was when I did not keep myself in readiness for thee;
and entering my heart unbidden even as one of the common crowd,
unknown to me, my king, thou didst press the signet of eternity upon
many a fleeting moment of my life.


And today when by chance I light upon them and see thy signature,
I find they have lain scattered in the dust mixed with the memory of
joys and sorrows of my trivial days forgotten.


Thou didst not turn in contempt from my childish play among dust,
and the steps that I heard in my playroom
are the same that are echoing from star to star.

Roaming Cloud

I am like a remnant of a cloud of autumn
uselessly roaming in the sky, O my sun ever-glorious!
Thy touch has not yet melted my vapor,
making me one with thy light,
and thus I count months and years separated from thee.


If this be thy wish and if this be thy play,
then take this fleeting emptiness of mine,
paint it with colors, gild it with gold,
float it on the wanton wind and spread it in varied wonders.


And again when it shall be thy wish to end this play at night,
I shall melt and vanish away in the dark,
or it may be in a smile of the white morning,
in a coolness of purity transparent.

Salutation


In one salutation to thee, my God,
let all my senses spread out and touch this world at thy feet.


Like a rain-cloud of July
hung low with its burden of unshed showers
let all my mind bend down at thy door in one salutation to thee.


Let all my songs gather together their diverse strains into a single current
and flow to a sea of silence in one salutation to thee.


Like a flock of homesick cranes flying night and day
back to their mountain nests
let all my life take its voyage to its eternal home
in one salutation to thee.

Poems On Man

Man goes into the noisy crowd
to drown his own clamour of silence.


Man is immortal; therefore he must die endlessly.
For life is a creative idea;
it can only find itself in changing forms.


Man's abiding happiness is not in getting anything
but in giving himself up to what is greater than himself,
to ideas which are larger than his individual life,
the idea of his country,
of humanity,
of God.

Poems On Life

Life is given to us,
we earn it by giving it.


Let the dead have the immortality of fame,
but the living the immortality of love.


Life's errors cry for the merciful beauty
that can modulate their isolation into a
harmony with the whole.


Life, like a child, laughs,
shaking its rattle of death as it runs.

Playthings


Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the

morning.

I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig.

I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour.

Perhaps you glance at me and think, "What a stupid game to spoil your morning
with!"

Child, I have forgotten the art of being absorbed in sticks and mud-pies.

I seek out costly playthings, and gather lumps of gold and silver.

With whatever you find you create your glad games, I spend both my time and my
strength over things I never can obtain.

In my frail canoe I struggle to cross the sea of desire, and forget that I too am
playing a game.

Paper Boats

Day by day I float my paper boats one by one down the running
stream.

In bid black letters I write my name on them and the name of
the village where I live.

I hope that someone in some strange land will find them and
know who I am.

I load my little boats with shiuli flower from our garden, and
hope that these blooms of the dawn will be carried safely to land
in the night.

I launch my paper boats and look up into the sky and see the
little clouds setting thee white bulging sails.

I know not what playmate of mine in the sky sends them down
the air to race with my boats!

When night comes I bury my face in my arms and dream that my
paper boats float on and on under the midnight stars.

The fairies of sleep are sailing in them, and the lading ins
their baskets full of dreams.

Passing Breeze

Yes, I know, this is nothing but thy love,
O beloved of my heart---this golden light that dances upon the leaves,
these idle clouds sailing across the sky,
this passing breeze leaving its coolness upon my forehead.


The morning light has flooded my eyes---this is thy message to my heart.
Thy face is bent from above, thy eyes look down on my eyes,
and my heart has touched thy feet.

On the Seashore

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.

The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the
seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.

They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered
leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have
their play on the seashore of worlds.

They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for
pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them
again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.

The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.
Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while
rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the
sea-beach.

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless
sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On
the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.

Only Thee

That I want thee, only thee---let my heart repeat without end.
All desires that distract me, day and night,
are false and empty to the core.


As the night keeps hidden in its gloom the petition for light,
even thus in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry
---`I want thee, only thee'.


As the storm still seeks its end in peace
when it strikes against peace with all its might,
even thus my rebellion strikes against thy love
and still its cry is
---`I want thee, only thee'.

Old And New

Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not.
Thou hast given me seats in homes not my own.
Thou hast brought the distant near and made a brother of the stranger.


I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed shelter;
I forget that there abides the old in the new,
and that there also thou abidest.


Through birth and death, in this world or in others,
wherever thou leadest me it is thou, the same,
the one companion of my endless life
who ever linkest my heart with bonds of joy to the unfamiliar.


When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut.
Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never lose
the bliss of the touch of the one
in the play of many.

O Fool

O Fool, try to carry thyself upon thy own shoulders!
O beggar, to come beg at thy own door!


Leave all thy burdens on his hands who can bear all,
and never look behind in regret.


Thy desire at once puts out the light from the lamp it touches with its breath.
It is unholy---take not thy gifts through its unclean hands.
Accept only what is offered by sacred love.

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.

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.

Lover's Gifts XXXIX: There Is a Looker-On

There is a looker-on who sits behind my eyes. I seems he has seen
things in ages and worlds beyond memory's shore, and those
forgotten sights glisten on the grass and shiver on the leaves. He
has seen under new veils the face of the one beloved, in twilight
hours of many a nameless star. Therefore his sky seems to ache with
the pain of countless meetings and partings, and a longing pervades
this spring breeze, -the longing that is full of the whisper of
ages without beginning.

Maya


That I should make much of myself and turn it on all sides,
thus casting colored shadows on thy radiance
---such is thy Maya.


Thou settest a barrier in thine own being
and then callest thy severed self in myriad notes.
This thy self-separation has taken body in me.


The poignant song is echoed through all the sky in many-coloued tears
and smiles, alarms and hopes; waves rise up and sink again,
dreams break and form.
In me is thy own defeat of self.


This screen that thou hast raised is painted with innumerable figures
with the brush of the night and the day.
Behind it thy seat is woven in wondrous mysteries of curves,
casting away all barren lines of straightness.


The great pageant of thee and me has overspread the sky.
With the tune of thee and me all the air is vibrant,
and all ages pass with the hiding and seeking of thee and me.

Lover's Gifts XVI: She Dwelt Here by the Pool

She dwelt here by the pool with its landing-stairs in ruins. Many
an evening she had watched the moon made dizzy by the shaking of
bamboo leaves, and on many a rainy day the smell of the wet earth
had come to her over the young shoots of rice.

Her pet name is known here among those date-palm groves and
in the courtyards where girls sit and talk while stitching their
winter quilts. The water in this pool keeps in its depth the memory
of her swimming limbs, and her wet feet had left their marks, day
after day, on the footpath leading to the village.

The women who come to-day with their vessels to the water have
all seen her smile over simple jests, and the old peasant, taking
his bullocks to their bath, used to stop at her door every day to
greet her.

Many a sailing-boat passes by this village; many a traveller
takes rest beneath that banyan tree; the ferry-boat crosses to
yonder ford carrying crowds to the market; but they never notice
this spot by the village road, near the pool with its ruined
landing-stairs,-where dwelt she whom I love.

Lover's Gifts XXII: I Shall Gladly Suffer

I shall gladly suffer the pride of culture to die out in my house,
if only in some happy future I am born a herd-boy in the Brinda
forest.

The herd-boy who grazes his cattle sitting under the banyan
tree, and idly weaves gunja flowers into garlands, who loves to
splash and plunge in the Jamuna's cool deep stream.

He calls his companions to wake up when morning dawns, and all
the houses in the lane hum with the sound of the churn, clouds of
dust are raised by the cattle, the maidens come out in the
courtyard to milk the king.

As the shadows deepen under the tomal trees, and the dusk
gathers on the river-banks; when the milkmaids, while crossing the
turbulent water, tremble with fear; and loud peacocks, with tails
outspread, dance in the forest, he watchers the summer clouds.

When the April night is sweet as a fresh-blown flower, he
disappears in the forest with a peacock's plume in his hair; the
swing ropes are twined with flowers on the branches; the south wind
throbs with music, and the merry shepherd boys crowd on the banks
of the blue river.

No, I will never be the leader, brothers, of this new age of
new Bengal; I shall not trouble to light the lamp of culture for
the benighted. If only I could be born, under the shady asoka
groves, in some village of Brinda, where milk is churned by the
maidens!

Lover's Gifts XLVII: The Road Is

The road is my wedded companion. She speaks to me under my feet all
day, she sings to my dreams all night.

My meeting with her had no beginning, it begins endlessly at
each daybreak, renewing its summer in fresh flowers and songs, and
her every new kiss is the first kiss to me.

The road and I are lovers. I change my dress for her night
after night, leaving the tattered cumber of the old in the wayside
inns when the day dawns.

Lover's Gifts XLIII: Dying, You Have Left Behind

Dying, you have left behind you the great sadness of the Eternal
in my life. You have painted my thought's horizon with the sunset
colours of your departure, leaving a track of tears across the
earth to love's heaven. Clasped in your dear arms, life and death
united in me in a marriage bond.

I think I can see you watching there in the balcony with your
lamp lighted, where the end and the beginning of all things meet.
My world went hence through the doors that you opened-you holding
the cup of death to my lips, filling it with life from your own.

Lover's Gifts XL: A Message Came

A message came from my youth of vanished days, saying, " I wait for
you among the quivering of unborn May, where smiles ripen for tears
and hours ache with songs unsung."

It says, "Come to me across the worn-out track of age, through
the gates of death. For dreams fade, hopes fail, the fathered
fruits of the year decay, but I am the eternal truth, and you shall
meet me again and again in your voyage of life from shore to
shore."

Lover's Gifts XIII: Last Night in the Garden

Last night in the garden I offered you my youth's foaming wine. You
lifted the cup to your lips, you shut your eyes and smiled while
I raised your veil, unbound your tresses, drawing down upon my
breast your face sweet with its silence, last night when the moon's
dream overflowed the world of slumber.

To-day in the dew-cooled calm of the dawn you are walking to
God's temple, bathed and robed in white, with a basketful of
flowers in your hand. I stand aside in the shade under the tree,
with my head bent, in the calm of the dawn by the lonely road to
the temple.

Lover's Gifts LVIII: Things Throng and Laugh

Things throng and laugh loud in the sky; the sands and dust dance
and whirl like children. Man's mind is aroused by their shouts; his
thoughts long to be the playmates of things.

Our dreams, drifting in the stream of the vague, stretch their
arms to clutch the earth, -their efforts stiffen into bricks and
stones, and thus the city of man is built.

Voices come swarming from the past,-seeking answers from the
living moments. Beats of their wings fill the air with tremulous
shadows, and sleepless thoughts in our minds leave their nests to
take flight across the desert of dimness, in the passionate thirst
for forms. They are lampless pilgrims, seeking the shore of light,
to find themselves in things. They will be lured into poets's
rhymes, they will be housed in the towers of the town not yet
planned, they have their call to arms from the battle fields of the
future, they are bidden to join hands in the strife of peace yet
to come.