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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74751 ***





                     The Wisdom of the East Series
                               EDITED BY
                            L. CRANMER-BYNG
                           Dr. S. A. KAPADIA


                             ANTHOLOGY OF
                         MODERN INDIAN POETRY




                          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED




                          WISDOM OF THE EAST

                             ANTHOLOGY OF
                             MODERN INDIAN
                                POETRY

                               EDITED BY
                          GWENDOLINE GOODWIN


                       [Illustration: colophon]


                                LONDON
                   JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W


                          FIRST EDITION, 1927


                     _Printed in Great Britain by
          Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._




CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE

PREFACE                                                                9

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS                                                       19

AN INVOCATION                                                         23

THE SECRETS OF THE SELF                                               27

WORSHIP                                                               34

BEYOND THE VERGE OF TIME--STEPS                                       35

EGO--FIRE                                                             36

THE ARTIST                                                            37

IMAGERY                                                               38

TRANSIENCE--O LONG BLACK HAIR--REVELATION                             39

“SPRING THAT IN MY COURTYARD”--“THIS
DAY WILL PASS”                                                        40

URVASI                                                                42

OPEN THOU THY DOOR OF MERCY                                           47

THE DANCER                                                            48

ACKNOWLEDGMENT                                                        49

REMEMBRANCE--THE VISIBLE                                              50

IN THE LIGHT                                                          51

CALL AND BRING HER                                                    52

BASANTA PANCHAMI                                                      53

A WOMAN’S BEAUTY                                                      54

AN EVENING ON THE LAGOON--AT THE
TEMPLE                                                                55

RAKSHA BANDHAN                                                        56

LONGINGS--THOUGHTS                                                    57

THE LOVERS                                                            58

A BLUE DREAM                                                          59

TULIP                                                                 60

RETURN TO KHAIRPUR--INDIA: ENTERTAINING
TWILIGHT                                                              61

ROSHANARA                                                             66

IN PRAISE OF HENNA                                                    68

IMPERIAL DELHI                                                        69

DIRGE                                                                 70

SPRING--CRADLE-SONG                                                   71

JUNE SUNSET                                                           72

BUNKIM CHANDRA CHATTERJI                                              73

A ROSE OF WOMEN--THE ISLAND
GRAVE                                                                 75

INVITATION                                                            76

A CHILD’S IMAGINATION                                                 77

EVENING--THE SEA AT NIGHT--LACHHI                                     78

AZMĒ                                                                  79

AWAKE, MY FRIEND                                                      81

MARRIAGE SONG                                                         82

MYSTIC LOVE SONG FROM “THIRTY
INDIAN SONGS"                                                         83

THE PUNJAB AUTUMN: THE SEASON OF
THE COOLING DEW                                                       84

RÂJHANS (THE PRINCE OF SWANS)                                         89

LATER LYRICS: POPLAR, BEECH, AND
WEEPING WILLOW                                                        90

ORPHIC MYSTERIES: THE YELLOW
BUTTERFLY                                                             93

MYVANWY                                                               96

KISMET                                                                99

TANSEN                                                               100

“THE HIGH AMBITION OF THE DROP OF
RAIN”                                                                101

“HOW DIFFICULT IS THE THORNY WAY OF
STRIFE”                                                              102

“THY BEAUTY FLASHES LIKE A SWORD”                                    103

“I SHALL NOT TRY TO FLEE THE SWORD
OF DEATH”                                                            104

VOICE IN THE AIR                                                     105

“ALL THIS IS RHYTHM”                                                 112

“FRIEND, DWELL THOU WITHIN”--“THOU
ART THE ROSE”                                                        113

“SNOW-BLOSSOMS, SNOW-BLOSSOMS”                                       114

“THE ROSE OF ETERNITY”                                               116

“THE BLUE OF INDRA”                                                  117

“THE SHADOW OF A FLYING BIRD”                                        118

LOVE’S SAMĀDHI--A CRADLE SONG                                        120

THE WAY OF POVERTY                                                   121

THE LAST PRAYER--UNION WITH CHRIST                                   122

PEACE                                                                123




PREFACE


Francis Bacon it was who said, “Prefaces are great wastes of time, and
tho’ they seem to proceed of modesty, they are bravery.” It is
necessary, however, in the present instance to make a stand against the
somewhat sweeping convictions of the Elizabethan master. The call of
Youth in India is a hot young call, trumpeting down the ages through a
maze of polytheistic tribute, and emerging in the twentieth century with
some of its original clearness of sound drowned by a Gargantuan thunder
of Western drums. The Indian poet of to-day is torn, like the Indian
painter, between admiration for Western models and a desire to mould
himself thereon, and an inherent Indian tradition that runs in his veins
and will not be denied. Indeed, it is pity to deny it. Sir Edmund Gosse
persuaded Sarojini Naidu to tear up her poems about English life and to
write of her own Indian bazaars and cities, villages and festivals, for
which persuasion we are indeed indebted to Sir Edmund. We of the West do
not want from the East poetic edifices built upon a foundation of Yeats
and Shelley and Walt Whitman. We want genuine Taj Mahals and Juma
Masjids, cameos of rural sweetness and the hopes of faithful hearts. We
want to hear the flute of Krishna as Radha heard it, to fall under the
spell of the blue god “in the lotus-heart of dreams.” For there is much
to learn from the melody of Eastern thought. It is, perhaps, a minor
melody born of the mating of Love and Death, but it has its seed in an
innate spiritual rapture that no Western veneer can wholly cover.

In the bulk of Indian poetry religious feeling predominates, as is only
natural in a country of many but steadfast faiths.

    “To act, to think, to feel aright until
    He knows his will as one with Allah’s will.”

Subjugation of the Self leading to a merging of that Self with God.
India writes largely from the “Inner Vision.” This disallows of foreign
influence, but the poet is necessarily inspired as well by an everyday
atmosphere which he enriches from the strength of his own perception.
The steps of the bathing-ghâts in Calcutta may be of Sheffield
cast-iron, but the country that could produce a Taj Mahal--“stone turned
into a dream,” D. G. Mukerji calls it--will never lose the innate
artistic vision of her soul. So the creative prayers of this mighty
cosmopolitan multitude surge upwards in a song of glory till they reach
the stars. Love of life is love of art because life is art and art is
life. We chase after fleeting perfection, a rosy cloud, a glint of
eternity in a lily-pool, a drop of dew trembling on a flower-petal,
moments of heaven in worlds of chaos. To catch a mood of Nature and
transfer it to paper; to wring from the heart of an instrument one swift
emotional phase after another: is it futile? is it useless?

    “Am I one of the trees in the night,
    Or are the trees human beings?”

asks Harindranath Chattopadhyaya in one of his poems not published here,
echoing the cry of Li Po:

    “Chuang Chou in a dream became a butterfly
    And the butterfly became Chuang Chou at waking:
    Which was the real, the butterfly or the man?”

In Indian poetry, the mystic element shines through the outer decorative
aspect.

    “Our dreams and longings cover deeper dreams
    And longings in the silence far away.”

We are roused from the beautiful lyrical lilt of Chattopadhyaya and of
his sister, Sarojini Naidu, by the thunder of Muhammad Iqbal’s
persuasive eloquence. He is a barrister-at-law at Lahore, an active
Moslem opposed to Platonic illusion and non-progressive idealism.

    “Plato, the prime ascetic and sage,
    Was one of that ancient flock of sheep.
    His Pegasus went astray in the darkness of philosophy
    And galloped over the mountains of Being.
    He was so fascinated by the Ideal
    That he made head, eye, and ear of no account.”

Whether one agrees with his outlook or not, the fact remains that one
cannot fail to be stirred by the intensely fiery spirit of Iqbal’s
rhetorical writing. He is a leader. He sweeps everything before him like
a great wind swirling through a forest of pines. He would re-create
Islam, an active, non-Imperialistic, non-sensual Islam. In his own
words, he is “the voice of the poet of To-morrow.” As Mr. R. A.
Nicholson (his translator) says, the book “Asrar-i-Khudi” (Secrets of
the Self), from which I have taken the extracts, “presents certain
obscurities which no translation can entirely remove.” That is, of
course, to European readers or to those not conversant with Persian
poetry. For the book was originally written in Persian.

    “Although the language of Hind is sweet as sugar,
    Yet sweeter is the fashion of Persian speech.”

He is an inspiring philosopher.

    “Thou art fire: fill the world with thy glow!
    Make others burn with thy burning!

           *       *       *       *       *

    Up, and re-inspire every living soul!”

I have spoken of the Youth of India, but the contributors to this volume
range in age from the twenties to the seventies. There is little need
for me to speak of Rabindranath Tagore. Mr. Edward Thompson (to whom I
am indebted for the three translations) has acted in a Boswellian
capacity, and the poet is as well known in England as are the great
poets of our own nationality. I would draw attention, however, to the
beautiful concluding lines of “Urvasi”:

    “On the night of full moon, when the world brims with laughter,
    Memory, from somewhere far away, pipes a flute that brings unrest,
            The tears gush out!
    Yet in that weeping of the spirit Hope wakes and lives;
            Ah, Unfettered One!”

The flute-call of memory bringing restlessness and a strange peace on
its liquid cadences. And a dimness of tears to stir the dust of Hope to
life. “Ah, Unfettered One!” I have included some translations of Indian
songs as sung by native singers, because I thought they might be of
interest from an indigenous point of view. Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy, of
the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., is responsible for their English
rendering. The one commencing “Quietly come, O Beauty, come,” has a
mystical meaning. We drift then into the Punjab, the Land of Five
Waters, and find Puran Singh, the Sikh poet, breathing the musk of
God-love through nostrils ever open to receive a spiritual fragrance.

    “The dew is falling everywhere,
    And wet is every rose.
    The gentle breath of heaven blows.”

It blows the perfume of the Beauty that is Worship into the heart of
this devout enthusiast. His mind is a casket that holds the most
precious gems of the Sikh religion and ideals, and gives them forth to
an unenlightened world. Nanak, Gobind, Teg Bahadur, the names of the Ten
Masters (whose lives he has written) sound in his ears day and night.

The loneliness of exile rings through the quivering poems of Manmohan
Ghose.

    “Lost is that country, and all but forgotten
    ’Mid these chill breezes ...”

All true poets love trees; Manmohan Ghose is no exception:

    “Willow sweet, willow sad, willow by the river,
    Taught by pensive love to droop, where ceaseless waters shiver.”

Mrs. Pankajini Basu is represented by one poem, “Basanta Panchami,” a
description of the famous Spring Festival. One line, in particular,
stands out: “Ever sorrowful, ever ill-starred, are we women of Bengal,
all of us,” and, one might add, ever devout, ever faithful. The eternal
question of Indian womanhood cannot be dismissed with a shrug of the
shoulders. Mrs. Naidu’s lines:

    “What further need hath she of loveliness
    Whom Death hath parted from her lord’s caress?”

seem to strike at the heart of the matter. Time alone will solve a
problem which at the moment is very vexed indeed. It would seem almost
that in their poems these Indian women express all the fullness of their
hearts in love-songs, hymns of conjugal devotion, lamentations, praise
of physical beauty, and tributes of faith. Emotional outlets of warm,
loyal natures, yet always with the underlying sadness that is the
birthright of Hind, like an anthem at evening or the eyes of a convent
sister. Melancholy glides like pearly vapour through “The Island Grave”
of Sri Aurobindo Ghose:

    “And I will meet thee in that lonely place,
    Then the grey dawn shall end my hateful days
    And death admit me to the silent ways.”

Death, to the Oriental, is a small and yet a great matter. He welcomes
rather than fears it. The body, being but the shell of the soul, is of
little account, save, perhaps, for its procreative value as a creator of
further beings in the image of God. Death, then, is a joyful thing, and
there is but a thin line between the wedding-song and the funeral dirge.

The blue bird of truth is flying against a sky of such intense blueness
as to be almost indistinguishable--Ananda Acharya’s “blue of Indra.”
This poet sends his “snow-blossoms” of Indian thought forth from the
cool earth of Norway. He lives there amid his “Arctic Swallows,” and in
his later work has grafted Asian feeling, in a curious way, upon a shoot
of Scandinavian origin. There is, of course, a strange affinity between
the Nordic peoples and the Asian. The strain flowed through Northern
Russia, south to Persia, and thence into India, the type gradually
changing from blue-eyed, fair-skinned folk to olive skins and “flaming
eyes, like thunder skies. So deep and dark....”

Jehangir Jivaji Vakil’s three little poems have not hitherto been
published. The one commencing “O long black hair of love” has an almost
Japanese brevity, and compresses into four lines quite a wealth of
ardent feeling.

India is rich in legendary history and does not lack for romantic and
dramatic episodes in her actual chronicles. I have, nevertheless, found
little of the narrative style of poetry among the modern poets.
Historical and legendary references are occasionally met with, but they
are usually incidental, and little use has been made of a
richly-equipped storehouse. Adi K. Sett has utilised this method in
“Roshanara,” Inayat Khan in “Tansen,” and Tagore (in a measure) in
“Urvasi.” Apparently the lyrical style or the sonnet-form has the
greatest appeal.

Narayan Vaman Tilak was a Christian mystic. His poems breathe all the
fervour of the convert.

    “Saith Dasa, Christ, upon Thy pallet-bed
    Grant me a little space to lay my head.”

I have included Zahir, Ghalib, and Amir, because, though not modern in a
strict sense, as is, say, Fredoon Kabraji, they have been translated by
living people, namely, Mrs. J. D. Westbrook and Pir-o-Murshid Inayat
Khan.

Whether this is the dawn-time of a new era of Indian poetic thought, who
shall say? These Eastern singers, Bengali, Punjabi, Hindu, Mohammedan,
Sikh, Christian, have upon their shoulders a yoke of heavy
responsibility. They have to support and become worthy of the mighty
tradition that lies behind them. Song should be theirs naturally, but it
is one thing to preserve the metre in their own particular tongues and
another to wrestle with the technicalities of English. There are many
more modern poets in India from whom I might have chosen, but the scope
of the book forbids the inclusion of more material.

The Indian twilight descends, gentle and swift, “wizard clocks ring out
and rend the calm.” The dark rich blue of night, peridot-studded, swings
a baby-moon high above inky palm and gleaming tomb. The poet sits in
contemplation. “The lotus dreams upon the lyric melodies of day....”

    RIGHT
    GWENDOLINE GOODWIN.

    HANG
    SHEFFIELD,
    _December 8th, 1926_.




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


I beg to acknowledge indebtedness to the following for permissions
accorded to reproduce poems:

     1. _Oxford University Press_ (Heritage of India Series). (Poems by
     Indian Women.)

    Professor Farquhar, of Manchester University.
    Mrs. Margaret Macnicol, Miss D. Whitehouse.

2. _Messrs. William Heinemann, Ltd._

    Mrs. Sarojini Naidu.
      “The Golden Threshold.”
      “The Broken Wing.”
      “The Bird of Time.”

3. _Blackwell_ (_Oxford_)

    Poems of Manmohan Ghose.
    Mr. Laurence Binyon.

4. “_Poetry Review_” (_Mr. Galloway Kyle_)

    Poems by Mrs. Elsa Kazi.

5. _Longmans, Green & Co._

    Nanikram Vasanmal Thadani.
      “Krishna’s Flute”

6. Adi K. Sett.

    “Roshanara.”

7. _Srinavasa Varadachari & Co._

    Sonnets.
    Prof. P. Seshadri, of Benares Hindu University.

8. _Indian Press, Ltd._ (_Allahabad_)

    Prof. P. Seshadri.
      “Vanished Hours.”
      “Champak Leaves.”

9. _The Sufi Movement_ (_Southampton_)

    Inayat Khan and Mrs. Jessie Duncan Westbrook.
      “Diwan.”
      Hindustani Lyrics.

10. _J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd._

    Puran Singh and Bhai Vir Singh.
      “Sisters of the Spinning-Wheel.”
      “Nargas.”

11. Jehangir Jivaji Vakil.

    (Three poems hitherto unpublished.)

12. _Messrs. Ernest Benn, Ltd._

    (Augustan Books of Modern Poetry.)
      Poems of Rabindranath Tagore.
      Mr. Edward Thompson.
      Mr. C. F. Andrews.

13. _Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd._

    “The Secrets of the Self.”
    Muhammad Iqbal (Lahore).
    Mr. R. A. Nicholson.
    Sri Ananda Acharya.
    “Book of the Cave” (_see Notes_).

14. _The Brahmakul Gaurisankar_ (_Alvdal, Norway_)

    Sri Ananda Acharya.
      “Saki.”
      “Usarika.”

15. _Theosophical Publishing House_ (_Adyar, Madras_)

    Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.
      “Feast of Youth.”

_Shama’a, Madras_

    “Out of the Deep Dark Mould.”
    “Magic Tree.”

16. Fredoon Kabraji.

17. _Messrs. Luzac & Co._

    Thirty Indian Songs.
    Ananda Coomaraswamy.

18. _Association Press_ (_Calcutta_)

    Poems of Narayan Vaman Tilak.
    Mr. D. N. Tilak (Copyright of Marathi originals).
    Rev. J. C. Winslow.

19. Sri Aurobindo Ghose (Pondicherry).




EDITORIAL NOTE


The object of the Editors of this series is a very definite one. They
desire above all things that, in their humble way, these books shall be
the ambassadors of good-will and understanding between East and
West--the old world of Thought and the new of Action. In this endeavour,
and in their own sphere, they are but followers of the highest example
in the land. They are confident that a deeper knowledge of the great
ideals and lofty philosophy of Oriental thought may help to a revival of
that true spirit of Charity which neither despises nor fears the nations
of another creed and colour.

    L. CRANMER-BYNG.

    S. A. KAPADIA.

    NORTHBROOK SOCIETY,
    IMPERIAL INSTITUTE,
    S.W.7.




ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN INDIAN POETRY




AN INVOCATION


    O, Thou art as the soul in the body of the universe,
    Thou art our soul and Thou art ever fleeing from us.
    Thou breathest music into Life’s lute;
    Life envies Death when death is for thy sake.
    Once more bring comfort to our sad hearts!
    Once more dwell in our breasts!
    Once more let us hear Thy call to honour!
    Strengthen our weak love.

    We are oft complaining of destiny,
    Thou art of great price and we have naught.
    Hide not Thy fair face from the empty-handed!
    Sell cheap the love of Salman and Bilál!
    Give us the sleepless eye and the passionate heart!
    Give us again the nature of quicksilver!
    Show unto us one of Thy manifest signs,
    That the necks of our enemies may be bowed!
    Make this chaff a mountain crested with fire,
    Burn with our fire all that is not God!
    When the people let the clue of Unity go from their hands,
    They fell into a hundred mazes.
    We are dispersed like stars in the world;
    Though of the same family, we are strange to one another.
    Bind again these scattered leaves,
    Revive the law of love!
    Take us back to serve Thee as of old,
    Commit Thy cause to them that love thee!
    We are travellers: give us devotion as our goal!
    Give us the strong faith of Abraham!
    Make us know the meaning of “There is no god”!
    Make us acquainted with the mystery of “except Allah”!
    I, who burn like a candle for the sake of others,
    Teach myself to weep like the candle.
    O God! a tear that is heart-enkindling,
    Passionful, wrung forth by pain, peace-consuming,
    May I sow in the garden, and may it grow into a fire
    That washes away the firebrand from the tulip’s robe!
    My heart is with yestereve, my eye is on to-morrow:
    Amidst the company I am alone.
    “Everyone fancies he is my friend,
    But my secret thoughts have not escaped from my heart.”
    O, where in the wide world is my comrade?
    I am the Bush of Sinai: where is my Moses?
    I am tyrannous, I have done many a wrong to myself,
    I have nourished a flame in my bosom,
    A flame that seized the furniture of judgment,
    And cast fire on the skirt of discretion,
    And lessened with madness the reason,
    And burned up the existence of knowledge:
    Its blaze enthrones the sun in the sky,
    And lightnings encircle it with adoration for ever.
    Mine eye fell to weeping, like dew,
    Since I was entrusted with that hidden fire.
    I taught the candle to burn openly,
    While I myself burned unseen by the world’s eye.
    At last flames breathed from every hair of me,
    Fire dropped from the veins of my thought:
    My nightingale picked up the spark-grains
    And created a fire-tempered song.
    Is the breast of this age without a heart?
    Majnún trembles lest Lailá’s howdah be empty.
    It is not easy for the candle to throb alone:
    Ah! is there no moth worthy of me?
    How long shall I wait for one to share my grief?
    How long must I search for a confidant?
    O Thou whose face lends light to the moon and the stars,
    Withdraw Thy fire from my soul!
    Take back what Thou hast put in my breast,
    Remove the stabbing radiance from my mirror,
    Or give me one old comrade
    To be the mirror of mine all-burning love!
    In the sea wave tosses side by side with wave:
    Each hath a partner in its emotion.
    In heaven star consorts with star,
    And the bright moon lays her head on the knees of Night.
    Morning touches Night’s dark side,
    And To-day throws itself against To-morrow.
    One river loses its being in another,
    A waft of air dies in perfume.
    There is dancing in every nook of the wine-house,
    Madman dances with madman.
    Howbeit in Thine essence Thou art single,
    Thou hast decked out for Thyself a whole world.
    I am as the tulip of the field,
    In the midst of a company I am alone.
    I beg of Thy grace a sympathising friend,
    An adept in the mysteries of my nature,
    A friend endowed with madness and wisdom,
    One that knoweth not the phantom of vain things,
    That I may confide my lament to his soul
    And see again my face in his heart.
    His image I will mould of mine own clay,
    I will be to him both idol and worshipper.

             _Muhammad Iqbal._




THE SECRETS OF THE SELF


PROLOGUE

    When the world-illuming sun rushed upon Night like a brigand,
    My weeping bedewed the face of the rose,
    My tears washed away sleep from the eye of the narcissus,
    My passion wakened the grass and made it grow.
    The Gardener taught me to sing with power,
    He sowed a verse and reaped a sword.
    In the soil he planted only the seed of my tears,
    And wove my lament with the garden, as warp and woof.
    Tho’ I am but a mote, the radiant sun is mine:
    Within my bosom are a hundred dawns.
    My dust is brighter than Jamshid’s cup,
    It knows things that are yet unborn in the world.
    My thought hunted down and slung from the saddle a deer
    That has not yet leaped forth from the covert of non-existence.
    Fair is my garden ere yet the leaves are green:
    Full-blown roses are hidden in the skirt of my garment.
    I struck dumb the musicians where they were gathered together,
    I smote the heartstrings of all that heard me,
    Because the lute of my genius hath a rare melody:
    Even to comrades my song is strange.
    I am born in the world as a new sun,
    I have not learned the ways and fashions of the sky:
    Not yet have the stars fled before my splendour,
    Not yet is my quicksilver astir;
    Untouched is the sea by my dancing rays,
    Untouched are the mountains by my crimson hue.
    The eye of existence is not familiar with me;
    I rise trembling, afraid to show myself.
    From the East my dawn arrived and routed Night,
    A fresh dew settled on the rose of the world.
    I am waiting for the votaries that rise at dawn:
    Oh, happy they who shall worship my fire!
    I have no need of the ear of To-day,
    I am the voice of the poet of To-morrow.
    My own age does not understand my deep meanings;
    My Joseph is not for this market.
    I despair of my old companions,
    My Sinai burns for sake of the Moses who is coming.
    Their sea is silent, like dew,
    But my dew is storm-ridden, like the ocean.
    My song is of another world than theirs:
    This bell calls other travellers to take the road.
    How many a poet after his death
    Opened our eyes when his own were closed,
    And journeyed forth again from nothingness
    When roses blossomed o’er the earth of his grave!
    Albeit caravans have passed through this desert,
    They passed, as a camel steps, with little sound.
    But I am a lover: loud crying is my faith:
    The clamour of Judgment Day is one of my minions.
    My song exceeds the range of the chord,
    Yet I do not fear that my lute will break.
    ’Twere better for the waterdrop not to know my torrent,
    Whose fury should rather madden the sea.
    No river will contain my Oman:
    My flood requires whole seas to hold it.
    Unless the bud expand into a bed of roses,
    It is unworthy of my spring-cloud’s bounty.
    Lightnings slumber within my soul,
    I sweep over mountain and plain.
    Wrestle with my sea, if thou art a plain;
    Receive my lightning, if thou art a Sinai.
    The Fountain of Life hath been given me to drink,
    I have been made an adept of the mystery of Life.
    The speck of dust was vitalised by my burning song:
    It unfolded wings and became a firefly.
    No one hath told the secret which I will tell
    Or threaded a pearl of thought like mine.
    Come, if thou wouldst know the secret of everlasting life!
    Come, if thou wouldst win both earth and heaven!
    The old _Guru_ of the Sky taught me this lore,
    I cannot hide it from my comrades.
    O Saki! arise and pour wine into the cup,
    Clear the vexation of Time from my heart!
    The sparkling liquor that flows from Zemzem--
    Were it a beggar, a king would pay homage to it.
    It makes thought more sober and wise,
    It makes the keen eye keener,
    It gives to a straw the weight of a mountain,
    And to foxes the strength of lions.
    It causes dust to soar to the Pleiades
    And a drop of water swell to the breadth of the sea.
    It turns silence into the din of Judgment Day,
    It makes the foot of the partridge red with blood of the hawk.
    Arise and pour pure wine into my cup,
    Pour moonbeams into the dark night of my thought,
    That I may lead home the wanderer
    And imbue the idle looker-on with restless impatience;
    And advance hotly on a new quest
    And become known as the champion of a new spirit;
    And be to people of insight as the pupil to the eye,
    And sink into the ear of the world, like a voice;
    And exalt the worth of Poesy
    And sprinkle the dry herbs with my tears.
    Inspired by the genius of the Master of Rum,
    I rehearse the sealed book of secret lore.
    His soul is the source of the flames,
    I am but as the spark that gleams for a moment.
    His burning candle consumed me, the moth;
    His wine overwhelmed my goblet.
    The Master of Rum transmuted my earth to gold
    And clothed my barren dust with beauty.
    The grain of sand set forth from the desert,
    That it might win the radiance of the sun.
    I am a wave, and I will come to rest in his sea,
    That I may make the glistening pearl mine own.
    I who am drunken with the wine of his song
    Will draw life from the breath of his words.
    ’Twas night: my heart would fain lament,
    The silence was filled with my cries to God.
    I was complaining of the sorrows of the world
    And bewailing the emptiness of my cup.
    At last mine eye could endure no more,
    Broken with fatigue it went to sleep.
    There appeared the Master, formed in the mould of Truth,
    Who wrote the Koran of Persia.
    He said, “O frenzied lover,
    Take a draught of love’s pure wine.
    Strike the chords of thine heart and rouse a tumultuous strain,
    Dash thine head against the cupping-glass and thine eye
       against the lancet!
    Make thy laughter the source of a hundred sighs,
    Make the hearts of men bleed with thy tears!
    How long wilt thou be silent, like a bud?
    Sell thy fragrance cheap, like the rose!
    Tongue-tied, thou art in pain:
    Cast thyself upon the fire, like rue!
    Like the bell, break silence at last, and from every limb
    Utter forth a lamentation!
    Thou art fire: fill the world with thy glow!
    Make others burn with thy burning!
    Proclaim the secrets of the old wine-seller;
    Be thou a surge of wine, and the crystal cup thy robe!
    Shatter the mirror of fear,
    Break the bottles in the bazaar!
    Like the reed-flute, bring a message from the reeds;
    Give to Majnún a message from Lailá!
    Create a new style for thy song,
    Enrich the feast with thy piercing strains!
    Up, and re-inspire every living soul!
    Say ‘Arise!’ and by that word quicken the living!
    Up, and set thy feet on another path;
    Put aside the passionate melancholy of old!
    Become familiar with the delight of singing;
    O bell of the caravan, awake!”
    At these words my bosom was enkindled
    And swelled with emotion like the flute;
    I rose like music from the string
    To prepare a Paradise for the ear.
    I unveiled the mystery of the Self
    And disclosed its wondrous secret.
    My being was as an unfinished statue,
    Uncomely, worthless, good for nothing.
    Love chiselled me: I became a man
    And gained knowledge of the nature of the universe.
    I have seen the movement of the sinews of the sky,
    And the blood coursing in the veins of the moon.
    Many a night I wept for Man’s sake
    That I might tear the veil from Life’s mysteries,
    And extract the secret of Life’s constitution
    From the laboratory of phenomena.
    I who give beauty to this night, like the moon,
    Am as dust in devotion to the pure Faith [Islam]--
    A Faith renowned in hill and dale,
    Which kindles in men’s hearts a flame of undying song:
    It sowed an atom and reaped a sun,
    It harvested a hundred poets like Rumi and Attar.
    I am a sigh: I will mount to the heavens;
    I am a breath, yet am I sprung of fire.
    Driven onward by high thoughts, my pen
    Cast abroad the secret of this veil,
    That the drop may become co-equal with the sea
    And the grain of sand grow into a Sahara.
    Poetising is not the aim of this _masnavi_,
    Beauty-worshipping and love-making is not its aim.
    I am of India: Persian is not my native tongue;
    I am like the crescent moon: my cup is not full.
    Do not seek from me charm of style in exposition,
    Do not seek from me Khansar and Isfahan.
    Although the language of Hind is sweet as sugar,
    Yet sweeter is the fashion of Persian speech.
    My mind was enchanted by its loveliness,
    My pen became as a twig of the Burning Bush.
    Because of the loftiness of my thoughts,
    Persian alone is suitable to them.
    O Reader, do not find fault with the wine-cup,
    But consider attentively the taste of the wine.

             _Muhammad Iqbal._




WORSHIP


    You flood my music with your autumn silence
    And burn me in the flame-burst of your spring.
    Lo! through my beggar-being’s tattered garments
    Resplendent shines your crystal heart, my King!

    Like a rich song you chant your red-fire sunrise,
    Deep in my dreams, and forge your white-flame moon ...
    You hide the crimson secret of your sunset,
    And the pure golden message of your moon.

    You fashion cool-grey clouds within my body,
    And weave your rain into a diamond mesh.
    The Universal Beauty dances, dances
    A glimmering peacock in my flowering flesh!

             _Harindranath Chattopadhyaya._




BEYOND THE VERGE OF TIME


    Our dreams and longings cover deeper dreams
    And longings in the silence far away.
    All things on earth, sweet winds and shining clouds,
    Waters and stars and the lone moods of men,
    Are cool green echoes of the voice that sings
    Beyond the verge of Time. Between two cries of aught,
    Of aught on earth, wakes the eternal fire
    Wherein the destiny of heaven is wrought,
    For what is heaven but the earth grown full,
    And God but man unshadowed and afar?

             _Harindranath Chattopadhyaya._




STEPS


    Each moment when we feel alone
    In this great world of rush and riot
    Is as a jewelled stepping-stone
    Which leads into the House of Quiet.

    Within it dwell the ancient seers
    Beyond unreal griefs and cares,
    Beyond unreal smiles and tears,
    Beyond the need of chant and prayers.

             _Harindranath Chattopadhyaya._




EGO


    A Beauty that ever eludes these fleshly eyes
    And fingers and lips ...
    Ere I can catch one gleam of the starry skies
    The mystery slips,

    Leaving an empty, desolate, mocking moan
    In the little heart that greedily sought to hold
    Vast beauty within its shadowy grasp and own
    Elusive, starry gold!

    Who are you, feeble, shadow-robed elf,
    Striving again and again in vain to capture
    Wealth of the deep, the shining, ineffable rapture
    Which is the Self beyond self?

             _Harindranath Chattopadhyaya._




FIRE


    Kindle your glimmering lamp in the infinite space, O Love!
    Let the dark shadows dance in the burning depths of mine eyes.
    I am athirst for one glimpse of your beautiful face, O Love!
    Veiled in the mystical silence of stars and the purple of skies.

    Thrill me with radiant rapture, O Love! of your ravishing flute,
    Folding my silence in song, and my sorrow in silver eclipse,
    Shaping my heart into flower, and the flower of my heart into fruit
    Meet for your orchards of light, and touch of your luminous lips.

    Cast in the shadowy deeps of my being, your love, like a spark,
    Fan it to magical flame, till my dead heart burst into fire,
    Swing like a censer, my dream of devotion, O Love! through the dark,
    Turn into tumults of incense my richly-pulsating desire!

             _Harindranath Chattopadhyaya._




THE ARTIST


    The selfsame radiant ecstasy
    Which wrought the tempest’s giant wrath
    Has painted gorgeous dream-designs
    So delicately on the moth.
    The selfsame luminous agony
    Which shaped the lightning’s fiery claw
    Has carved in utmost tenderness
    A summer flower without a flaw.

    The selfsame motherhood which made
    The awful mystery of death
    Has built the body of a child
    And lit its limbs with golden breath.
    The selfsame miracle which moves
    In silent mystery apart
    Has struck the secret melody
    Which dances shyly in my heart.

             _Harindranath Chattopadhyaya._




IMAGERY


    He has fashioned the stars and the moons to the music
    Of innermost-flowering joy and desire,
    He has tried his own love for himself through the ages
    By flooding his limbs with unquenchable fire
    Of creation that dances and bubbles and flutters
    In peacocks, in seas, and the hearts of the birds.
    Behind the rich silence of red-running sunsets
    And cool-coloured sundawns he utters his words.

    He is finding for ever his infinite fullness
    In blossoming buds and the withering flowers.
    He shapes through the heart of the world his Ideal
    So white in the midst of the many-hued hours.
    He weaves a fine trammel of marvellous colours
    Around and about him in utter delight,
    Till straight through the darkness his laughter comes lambent,
    Birdlike from a cage in a freedom of flight.

             _Harindranath Chattopadhyaya._




I

TRANSIENCE


    Forgive this wrong:
    That of your beauty I have made
    Only a passing song,
    Only a white-flower song that will fade
    Ere I have time to lay it beneath
    The shapèd beauty of your feet.

             _Jehangir Jivaji Vakil._




II

O LONG BLACK HAIR


    O long black hair of love,
    In your dark shades a dove,
    My heart, circles in rings,
        Beating white wings.

             _Jehangir Jivaji Vakil._




REVELATION


    O, I have dreamt on many rain-dim eves
    Of Beauty folded in the flowers and leaves,
    Spraying the grass with laughter as with light
    Of shaken pearls that lit her hair’s dark night;
    But never dreamed her eyes so deep might be
    As those with which last eve you gazed at me.

             _Jehangir Jivaji Vakil._




SPRING THAT IN MY COURTYARD


    Spring that in my courtyard used to make
    Such riot once, and buzzing laughter lift,
    With heaped drift--
    Pomegranate-flowers,
    _Kanchan_, _parul_, rain of _palas_-showers;
    Spring whose new twigs stirred the woods awake,
    With rosy kisses maddening all the sky,[1]
    Seeks me out to-day with soundless feet,
    Where I sit alone. Her steadfast gaze
    Goes out to where the fields and heavens meet;
    Beside my silent cottage, silently
    She looks and sees the greenness swoon and die
    Into the azure haze.

             _Rabindranath Tagore._




THIS DAY WILL PASS


    I know this day will pass,
          This day will pass--[2]
    That one day, some day,
    The dim sun with tender smiling
    Will look in my face,
          Looking his last farewell.
    Beside the way the flute will sound,
    The kine will graze on the river-bank,
    The children will play in the courtyards,
          The birds will sing on.
      Yet this day will pass,
          This day will pass.
    This is my prayer,
          My prayer to Thee:
      That ere I go I may learn
      Why the green Earth,
      Lifting her eyes to the sky,
          Called me to her;
      Why the silence of the Night
      Told me of the stars,
    Why the Day’s glory
          Raised waves in my soul.
      This is my prayer to Thee.
    When Earth’s revolutions
          For me are ended,
      In the finishing of my song
      Let me pause a moment,
      That I may fill my basket
          With the flowers and fruits of the Six Seasons;[3]
      That in the light of this life
      I may see Thee in going,
      That I may garland Thee in going
          With the garland from my own throat--
      When Earth’s revolutions for me are ended.

             _Rabindranath Tagore._




_URVASI_[4]


    Thou art not Mother, art not Daughter, art not Bride!
          Thou beautiful, comely One,
          O Dweller in Paradise, Urvasi!
    When Evening descends on the pastures, drawing about her tired
       body her golden cloth,
    Thou lightest the evening lamp within no home.
    With hesitant, wavering steps, with throbbing breast
       and downcast look,
    Thou dost not go, smiling, fearful, to any belovèd’s bed,
          In the hushed midnight.
    Like the rising Dawn, thou art unveiled,
          Unshrinking One!
    Like some stemless flower, blooming in thyself,
          When didst thou blossom, Urvasi?
    That primal Spring, thou didst arise from the churning of Ocean,[5]
    In thy right hand nectar, venom in thy left.
    The swelling, mighty Sea, like a serpent tamed with spells,
    Drooping his thousand, towering hoods,
          Fell at thy feet!
    White as the _kunda_[6] blossom, a naked beauty,
       adored by the King of Gods,
          Thou flawless One!

    Wast thou never bud, never maiden of tender years,
          O eternally youthful Urvasi?
    Sitting alone, under whose dark roof
    Didst thou know childhood’s play, toying with gems and pearls?
    At whose side, in some chamber lit with the flashing of gems,
    Lulled by the chant of the sea-waves, didst thou sleep, in coral bed,
          A smile on thy pure face?

    That moment when thou awakedst into the universe,
       thou wast framed of youth,
          In full-blown beauty!

    From age to age thou hast been the world’s beloved,
          O unsurpassed in loveliness, Urvasi!
    Breaking their meditation, sages lay at thy feet the
       fruits of their penance;
    Smitten with thy glance, the three worlds[7] grow restless with youth;
    The blinded winds blow thine intoxicating fragrance around;
    Like the black bee, honey-drunken, the infatuated
       poet wonders, with greedy heart,
          Lifting chants of wild jubilation!
    While thou ... thou goest with jingling anklets and waving skirts,
          Restless as lightning!

    In the assembly of Gods, when thou dancest in ecstasy of joy,
          O swaying Wave, Urvasi!
    The companies of billows in mid-ocean swell and dance, beat on beat;
    In the crests of the corn the skirts of Earth tremble;
    From thy necklace stars fall off, in the sky;
    Suddenly in the breast of man the heart forgets itself,
          The blood dances!
    Suddenly in the horizon thy zone bursts,
          Ah, wild in abandon!

    On the Sunrise Mount of Heaven thou art the embodied Dawn,
          O world-enchanting Urvasi!
    The slimness of thy form is washed with the tears of the Universe;
    The ruddy hue of thy feet is painted with the heart’s
       blood of the three worlds;
    Thy tresses disrobed from their braid, thou hast
       placed thy light feet,
    Thy lotus-feet, on the lotus of the blossomed
          Desires of the universe!
    Endless are thy masques in the mind’s heaven,
          O Comrade of dreams!

    Ah, hear what crying and weeping everywhere rises for thee,
          O cruel, deaf Urvasi!
    Ah, will that Ancient Prime ever revisit this earth?
    From the shoreless, unfathomed deep wilt thou ever
       rise again, with wet locks?
    First in the First Dawn that Form will show!
    In the startled gaze of the universe all thy limbs will weep,
          The waters flowing from them!
    Suddenly the vast Sea, in songs never heard before,
          Will thunder with its waves!

    She will not return, she will not return! That Moon of Glory has set,
          She has made her home on the Mount of Setting,[8] has Urvasi!
    Therefore to-day, on earth, with the joyous breath of Spring
    Mingles the long-drawn sigh of some eternal separation!
    On the night of full moon, when the world brims with laughter,
    Memory, from somewhere far away, pipes a flute that brings unrest,
          The tears gush out!
    Yet in that weeping of the spirit Hope wakes and lives;
          Ah, Unfettered One!

             _Rabindranath Tagore._




OPEN THOU THY DOOR OF MERCY


All my guilt of old, sin upon sin, put far, far away. Give, O Lord, give
in my heart the melody of a new song.

To stir to life my withered, unfeeling heart, near to death and poor,
play thy melody on the _bīnā_, taking ever a new tune.

As in Nature thy sweetness overflows, so let thy compassion wake in my
heart.

In the midst of all things may thy loving face float before my eyes. May
no rebel thought against thy wish ever wake in my heart.

Day by day, before I set foot in life’s forest, may I crave thy blessing
and so advance, my Lord.

Setting thy commands upon my head, may I with unfaltering care
accomplish my every task in the remembrance of thy feet.

Giving to thee the fruit of my task fulfilled, at the end of day may my
wearied spirit and body find rest.

Hurrying have I come from far away, knowing thee compassionate. A
hundred hindrances there were to my coming. How many thorns fill the
path to my goal. So, to-day, behold! my heart is wounded, my life is
dark. Hurrying have I come from far away, knowing thee compassionate.

Open thou thy door of mercy. My raft of life drifts on the boundless
ocean. Fearlessness art thou, and ever powerful. Nought have I, I am
weak and poor. My heart is thirsting for thy lotus feet. The day is now
far spent. Open thou thy door of mercy. My raft of life drifts on the
boundless ocean.[9]

    _Hemantabālā Dutt._

    Tr. Miss Whitehouse.




THE DANCER


Lo! the heavy rain has come! With loosened tresses densely dark, lo! the
sky is covered. Lightnings rend the thick darkness over the mountains.
All around, to my heart’s content, I see that beauty has burst forth.

See, frolicsome, she pours forth her loveliness in a thousand streams!
Her raiment, hastily flung around her in disarray, mad passion in her
eyes, with the voice of the _pāpiyā_, full of sweetness and pity, she
sings.

Slowly move her feet. Slipping, slipping, falls her loosely hanging
scarf. Her heart throbs with tumultuous feeling. As if a flood of beauty
overflows, her green jacket of emerald grass displays the hue of her
radiant beauty all around.

The anklets on her feet, keeping time, ring out in swift succession, as
if they were sweet cymbals. Round her lovely throat hangs her chain of
emerald parrots. The rain has ceased and she garbs herself in silken
robes broidered with diamond raindrops.

She gladdens the eye. On the treetops birds play on golden tambourines.
Is the dancer dancing in Indra’s hall, casting restless glances here and
there? Urbasī[10] puts off the chain of jewels from her breast.

How gay her laughter! How fair a dance her tinkling footsteps weave! Her
bracelets and bangles circle glittering. She is girdled with melody of
murmuring swans. For her earth and sky swoon away, overflowing with
love.

Her hands touched the _bīnā_[11] and by her spell enthralled my
infatuated heart. Tears stream from my eyes; infatuation floods my
heart. The witch to-day has melted my timid heart. Lo! the heavy rain
has come.

    _Nirupamā Debī._

    Tr. Miss Whitehouse.




ACKNOWLEDGMENT


    Thee among all men do I honour;
    Thee among all men do I know.
    Lo! in the beauty of all thee do I see.

    In the mouth of all I have heard, I have heard
    The sweet voice of thy lips.

    Thee this time I have sought and found;
    Thee amongst all do I worship;
    Lo! I for all have given my life.

    To the work of all amongst all
    I have devoted my heart.[12]

             _Nirupamā Debī._

           Tr. Miss Whitehouse.




REMEMBRANCE


    To-day I shall not indulge in lovers’ quarrels.
    I shall not open the ledger and calculate debit and credit.
    Only, once again, I shall fill my heart with remembrance of thee.[13]

             _Priyambadā Debī._

    Tr. Miss Whitehouse.




THE VISIBLE


Dearest, I know that thy body is but transitory; that the kindled life,
thy shining eyes, shall be quenched by the touch of death, I know; that
this thy body, the meeting-place of all beauty, in seeing which I count
my life well-lived, shall become but a heap of bones, I know. Yet I love
thy body. Day by day afresh through it have I satisfied a woman’s love
and desire by serving thy feet and worshipping thee. On days of good
omen I have decked thee with a flower-garland; on days of woe I have
wiped away with my _sārī_ end thy tears of grief. O my lord, I know that
thy soul is with the Everlasting One, yet waking suddenly some nights I
have wept in loneliness, thinking how thou didst drive away my fear,
clasping me to thy breast. And so I count thy body as the chief goal of
my love, as very heaven.[14]

    _Priyambadā Debī._

    Tr. Miss Whitehouse.




IN THE LIGHT


We are indeed children of Light. What an endless mart goes on in the
Light! In the Light is our sleeping and waking, the play of our life and
death.

Beneath one great canopy, in the ray of one great sun, slowly, very
slowly, burn the unnumbered lamps of life.

In the midst of this unending Light I lose myself; amidst this
intolerable radiance I wander like one blind.

We are indeed children of Light. Why then do we fear when we see the
Light? Come, let us look all around and see, here no man hath cause for
any fear.

In this boundless ocean of Light, if a tiny lamp goes out, let it go;
who can say that it will not burn again?

    _Mrs. Kāminī Roy._

    Tr. Miss Whitehouse.




CALL AND BRING HER


She went on the wrong way; she has come back again; afar off she stands,
her head bowed down with shame and fear; she does not step forward, she
cannot raise her eyes--go near, take her hand, call her and bring her.

To-day turn not your face away in silent reproach; to-day let eyes and
words be filled with the nectar of love. What good will come from
pouring scorn on the past? Think of her dark future, take her by the
hand and bring her.

Lest for lack of love this shamed soul fling away repentance, bring her,
call and bring her. She has come to give herself up; bind her fast with
loving arms; if she goes to-day, what if she never comes again?

By one day’s neglect, one day’s contempt and anger, you will lose a
life for ever. Do you not purpose to give life? Neglect is a poisoned
arrow; with sorrowing pardon bring her, call and bring her.

    _Mrs. Kāminī Roy._

    Tr. Miss Whitehouse.




BASANTA PANCHAMI[15]


To-day, after a year, on the sacred fifth day, Nature has flung away her
worn raiment, and with new jewels, see, with fresh buds and new shoots
she has begemmed herself and smiles. The birds wing their way, singing
with joy; ah, how lovely! The black bee hums as if with sound of “Ulu!
ulu!” he wished good fortune to Nature. The south breeze seems to say as
it flits from house to house, “To-day Bīnāpāni[16] comes here to
Bengal.” Arrayed in guise that would enrapture even sages, maid Nature
has come to worship thy feet, O propitious one! See, O India, at this
time all pay no heed to fear of plague, famine, earthquake; all put away
pain and grief and gloom; to-day all are drunk with pleasure. For a year
Nature was waiting in hope for this day to come. Many folk in many a
fashion now summon thee, O white-armed one; I also have a mind to
worship. Thy two feet are red lotuses; but, say, with what gift shall we
worship thee, O mother Bīnāpāni? Ever sorrowful, ever ill-starred are we
women of Bengal, all of us. Yet if thou have mercy, this utterly
dependent one will worship thee with the gift of a single tear of
devotion shed on thy lotus feet. Graciously accept that, and in mercy, O
white-armed one, grant this blessing on my head on this propitious,
sacred day, that this life may be spent in thy worship, Mother.

    _Pankajinī Basu._

    Tr. Miss Whitehouse.




A WOMAN’S BEAUTY


    Round the black eyes are eyebrows looking like a bow,
    They are not frightened at all, and they shoot
       their arrows with certainty.
    Seeing the precious ear-rings with pearls and beautiful settings,
    Even the moon with all the stars is filled with shame.
    I cannot describe the beauty of the lips, cheeks, teeth, and nose,
    Even Śesh Nāg,[17] seeing the beautiful hair, sighs deeply.

             _Śrī Sarasvatī Devī._

    Tr. Mrs. Keay.




AN EVENING ON THE LAGOON


    Withdrawn in silence from the raging sea,
      Behind the dark and waving grove of palm
      In glorious solitude at even calm
    We glide at water’s edge, towards the lea
    Away from busy haunts; Eternity
      And Love, the burden of our rapturous psalm,
      As ’neath the star-lit heaven we breathe the balm
    Of Nature’s stillness, lulling you and me
    To dream in soft ethereal realms of bliss
      Where flits no darkening shadow, dwells no care
        And all is sweetness and ecstatic light,
    The plighted faith renewed with every kiss
      Of fervent gratitude for all our share
        Of blessed weal in life, by day and night.

             _P. Seshadri._




AT THE TEMPLE


    Three little girls were on the temple-stair
      Waiting for worship at the inner shrine;
      Their tiny hands betrayed a hidden sign
    Of weariness, devoid of strength to bear
    Their wealth of luscious fruit and offerings rare--
      But still they stood. “What shall the Gods assign
      To crown your lives?” I asked, “what blessings fine
    Will cheer with happiness your faces fair?”
    “A mass of glittering jewels,” said one child,
      “Bracelet and necklace, shining gold waistband
      And pearl ear-drop.” “Fine robes of richest lace
    And gayest foam-spun silk,” another willed.
      The third, with head bent down and trembling hand,
      Whispered, “A lovely partner on life’s ways.”

             _P. Seshadri._




RAKSHA BANDHAN


    A piece of silken tassel tipped with gold,
      Tied round the hand by loving sister’s hands,
      A sacred day in _Sravan_, when the lands
    Are bathed in welcome rain, is said to hold
    A potent charm for good. From days of old
      This pretty faith has come and happy bands
      Of brothers still pay heed to its commands
    One day each year. Who will be rashly bold
    And flout this festival as void of worth--
      An ancient mummery--to which man shows
      His slavish piety? Let him, who knows
        Of beings more devoted than the fair,
        Of wishes purer than a sister’s care,
    And stronger powers than woman’s love on earth.

             _P. Seshadri._




LONGINGS


    Were I a mighty Master swaying Art
      In all her lovely forms surpassing fair
      And robed in magic mystery, aware
    Of cunning artist-craft, a mind and heart
    Aglow with Beauty’s sacred spark, a part
      Of God’s creative light! If I could share
      The gift of breathing life-infusing air
    In canvas, draw thy rapturous sweetness, start
    The portrait beaming, bright in loveliness;
      The sculptor’s skill--to shape thy limbs divine
        In living marble, show thy beauty’s prime!
        Shall I encrowned with laurel, sing for Time,
      Eternity, and Universe, enshrine
    Thy name for ages, scorning storm and stress?

             _P. Seshadri._




THOUGHTS


    When midnight hours know not the peace of sleep
      But drudge in trembling hope for envied fame,
      In ghostly solitude before a flame
    Of glimmering light, whose sombre rays out-peep
    To view the city wrapped in silence deep,
      Midst weird and darkly waving groves of palm;
      When wizard clocks ring out and rend the calm
    With strides of Time--their thrilling voices creep
    Along the soul; my mind with labour worn,
      Or grappling with a knot, delights to stand
        In stillness, yearning forth to clasp with love
        Thy beauteous form--and then, Spring opes above!
      With blossom’d flow’r and chirping bird, the land
    Smiles ’neath the sunlit hues the heavens adorn!

             _P. Seshadri._




THE LOVERS


From the rose-gardens of Time, fragrant and fresh, in ecstasies of
light--Day has come! How many an age of silent love hath breathed and
breathed upon his cheeks that tender flush of rose?

The blue in his eyes--from what lakes of enchantment hath he drunk? The
radiant colours of his thought--from what infinite wonder hath he made?
The glory of his love for whom, for whom hath he brought? For whom, for
whom the music of his clouds, his winds, his birds? The secrets of his
soul for whom, for whom?

       *       *       *       *       *

A Lotus-bud has opened; ere she was born the pain of a vast music did
fill and fill her soul with a vain constant hope; in the ecstasy of that
pain she bloomed into flower.

The Lotus dreams upon the lyric melodies of Day.

In the sunset hush of evening she folds her petals upon the memories of
Day, enwoven with her fragrant devotions.

In the secrecy of Night she sings her praise, making the deeps of the
dark melodious.

       *       *       *       *       *

The glory of his love for whom, for whom doth he bring? For whom, for
whom the music of his clouds, his winds, his birds?

The secrets of his soul for whom, for whom?

    _Fredoon Kabraji._




A BLUE DREAM


            Where her two lips
          Meet or part,
          Leaps all my heart
            Like the swift ship’s
          Lurch on the lucent wave--
          Past peril and the grave!

          Where her two eyes open or close
          Upon the rose-kissed snows
            Of her face,
          From my soul doth rise
          Of its grace
          A white star in their skies!

            But if she smile ...
          Or weave of her mouth a word,
          Swiftly a light steals
            Half my mind, while
          Her word falls all unheard!
          And a blue mist reels
          Half curtaining my mind,
          As a blue dream reels
          In the heart of the blind:
          Circling a remembrance
          Of meadows and streams,
    Of blossoms that open and lights that dance,
    And passions that struggle to live in dreams!

             _Fredoon Kabraji._




TULIP


Tulip, tell me, what do you hold in your cup?

I hold in my cup the magic that swells the thirst of your soul, O
Mother, when you look on the form of your child; the opiate that fills
your dream, Mother, with the awe of the Unknown!

But, Tulip, tell me, why do you guard your magic beyond the wing of
melody?

Because, ere Thought was, a kiss of Love did capture Death in the Seed
of Life. That is why no melody of Life can hold all the magic in my cup,
Mother; that is why Love cannot hold your child in Life alone!

    _Fredoon Kabraji._




RETURN TO KHAIRPUR


    Thy greens grow pearls, thy sunsets roses fair;
    My wandering heart returned to stay with thee,
    In shades of eve, to breathe thy cooler air,
    That brings refreshment, promised long to me.
    I love thy water-wheels, that sing to sleep
    The playful twilight, Autumn’s moody child,
    The flames that from thy fields and pinfolds leap
    Like lights that lead the hearts by Pan beguiled.
    I love thy country maids with water-jars
    Whose graceful coveys rural charms enhance.
    I love thy palms that gaze at distant stars,
    And upward draw the earth-encumbered glance.
    I love thy lake with silver trailing flowers,
    Whose wavelets fondly hold the starry skies;
    The moon, entranced by calm of midnight hours,
    In violet bed on lily-petals lies.
    No more the eyes of homesick longings pine
    To watch the sphere remote where stars abound,
    But, like thy lake that holds its love divine,
    My heart within hath longed-for heaven found.

             _Elsa Kazi._




INDIA--ENTERTAINING TWILIGHT


    To India’s comely cottage Twilight hied:
    “Salam, my lass!” resplendent Twilight cried:
    “A sumptuous fare prepare! ... since noon I tried
    To come this way ... but ah! the glowing day did stay
    With thee!... Fresh milk and fried chapatis bring;
    Do not forget thy hubble-bubble, dear,
    For lots of dreamy cheer!
    From out thy hair the withered lily fling;
    Don fine array, with pearls thy tresses lay, and play
    Thy vīnā, dance and sing!
    One stolen hour is mine; that little while
    With haunting notes of _suri-raag_ beguile ...
    And let me see thy flaming eyes, as thunder skies
    So deep and dark, with mystic lightnings bright;
    With ‘Duhals’ wake what slumbering lies, the past let rise
    All yesterdays to pageant gay, invite ...
    Be swift, my sweet!
    The meat and chutney let us eat ...
    The hour, my sweet,
    Is fleet; from night I must retreat!
    Already muezzin’s mellow call resounds in mango grove;
    And temple bells, that wake the gods, the hearts to worship move;
    Come hither, dear!... The moments flee!
    Salam, my love,
    Salam!”

    And India, sun-burnt India, sweetly blushed;
    “Salam! I’ll hasten!” answered she; and brushed
    From off her braid the faded lily--crushed
    By day’s embrace; she sped, with joy, her face a-blaze,
    To milk the goats, to fry the cakes in ghee;
    Cabob, pullau, the dates and honey brought
    And hubble-bubble sought
    With smiles of Sindian hospitality.
    With peri-grace she soared about the place, to trace
    Each thing that added glee
    To Twilight’s hour ... a rich repast she spread
    Before her guest, who sliced the mangoes red
    ’Neath palms, beside the well and stream ... his eyes a-gleam
    With dusk, he watched where night in forests hid
    And vexed with prying silver beam his crimson dream,
    While India, humming low, her braids undid.
    With rustling sound
    Unbound, her tresses sought the ground;
    With silvery sound
    She wound her pearls in orient found ...
    Her silk-apparel jasmin-decked, kissed rugs of golden cloth;
    With henna’d hands she swirled her veil, as frail as wings of moth;
    Her vīnā struck, with bended knee:
    “Salam,” she quoth:
    “Salam!”

    She shot as lightning up ... then paused and smiled;
    Then round she spun in trance, as dervish wild;
    In rainbow hue she flew, with flowers piled;
    A flame a-whirl, with passion red, each curl a-twirl,
    As Indra’s temple-dancer, maddening hearts
    Her lips with kisses scarlet!--Eyes aglow
    Now moved she sly and slow
    As Punjab tigress ere for prey she starts ...
    Then did unfurl a smock as white as pearl ... a girl
    Of pious Southern parts
    She turned, gazellean-soft and meek her glance,
    The rosary and censer graced her dance;
    A fragrant bud of womanhood, divinely good;
    But soon her measure ceased ... with rhythmic thrill
    In Delhi’s wealth arrayed she stood, in soaring mood
    Then danced again, to show her perfect skill!
    With flourish bold
    And gold a-flash, now anklets told,
    Her footsteps bold
    Controlled a battle march of old!
    She forward dashed as amazon of Rajput’s desert side,
    Her eyes with valour all a-flame, so proudly did she stride:
    “Wah! Wah!” so Twilight cheered ... and she:
    “Salam,” replied:
    “Salam!”

    Her Jadoo-veil now changed the scene ... and lo!
    In clouds she danced thro’ Kashmeer’s mountainsnow,
    Thro’ jungle glooms and tombs of gold below;
    By Ganges led, where orchards blossoms shed, she sped
    ’Mid Koels as Gopi, or as Rama’s queen ...
    With shimmering ivory limbs, and rubied brow
    As Moghul princess now
    She sat ’mid slaves on throne of Jasper sheen.
    Now made her bed on elephant’s broad head, and fled
    As Jin thro’ plantains green.
    Then rose as butterfly from out her shawl
    All poised o’er lucid lakes of Taj Mahal.--
    The hour had slipped, and night at last approached so fast;
    And Twilight donned his turban, chilled with fright ...
    The hookah-stick, he dropped aghast, and India cast
    Her jewelled slipper at her guardian Night
    Who gently sailed,
    And trailed the stars ... but Twilight quailed
    And westward sailed!
    All veiled in mists he drooped and paled!
    Her lacquered cradle India spread for moonlit night to rest,
    Namaskar made with folded hands! ... half serious, half a-jest,
    She fibbered: “Twilight hit at thee ...
    Salam, my best
    Salam!”

             _Elsa Kazi._




ROSHANARA


The Queen Roshanara is sad and weeps in the absence of her lord in
battle. Her maidens strive to comfort her:

    With this, to the couch
    Whereon lay the Queen, so shaken
    With voices she heard
    And dreams she dreamt
    And visions she saw.
    To her they brought rose-petals
    In their hands, and musks in baskets,
    Perfuming her. But she was
    Terror-stricken still.
    Then with a wild clash of
    Tambourines they fell to
    An air of joyous happiness,
    Sweetly soared the voice,
    Like that of a nightingale,
    Of the chief maiden who
    Sang of the wind:

    “North wind and south wind,
    West wind and east wind,
    Thou shalt not moan,
    But blow, blow
    Gently on my Lady’s cheeks, blow.
    And thou, O great sea,
    Thou shalt not wail,
    But sweetly lull my Lady to sleep.

    “Red leaf and green leaf, and all ye withered leaves,
    Ye shall not turn the lawns into a wilderness,
    For my Lady is sad,
    And to see ye thus would make her sadder still.
    Great trees and small trees,
    Ye shall not shake and shiver
    When my Lady walks,
    But ye shall serve her as a good shade.

    “Great birds and small birds and all ye humming birds,
    Ye shall not wail mourning elegies,
    But shall twitter and your little throats shall quiver
    In an ecstasy of delight.
    Ye shall sing of sweet joy,
    Ye shall make my Lady happy.

    “And ye Fairies and Cherubs,
    Ye Queens of the Dreams,
    And Kings of the Shadows,
    Of the hidden people and the Unknown,
    Ye shall not approach my Lady,
    For her heart sinks with fright,
    And she trembles like a leaf
    That is thrown from the branches
    With the wind’s force.
    All ye unknown, be banished
    From my Lady, to your land
    Of Mystery and Heart’s Desire,
    To your land of Eternal Youth.”

             _Adi K. Sett._




IN PRAISE OF HENNA


    A kokila called from a henna-spray:
    _Lira! liree! Lira! liree!_
    Hasten, maidens, hasten away
    To gather the leaves of the henna tree.
    Send your pitchers afloat on the tide,
    Gather the leaves ere the dawn be old,
    Grind them in mortars of amber and gold,
    The fresh green leaves of the henna tree.

    A kokila called from a henna-spray:
    _Lira! liree! Lira! liree!_
    Hasten, maidens, hasten away
    To gather the leaves of the henna tree.
    The _tilka’s_ red for the brow of a bride,
    And betel-nut’s red for lips that are sweet;
    But, for lily-like fingers and feet,
    The red, the red of the henna tree.

             _Sarojini Naidu._




IMPERIAL DELHI


    Imperial City! dowered with sovereign grace,
    To thy renascent glory still there clings
    The splendid tragedy of ancient things,
    The regal woes of many a vanquished race;
    And memory’s tears are cold upon thy face
    E’en while thy heart’s returning gladness rings
    Loud on the sleep of thy forgotten Kings,
    Who in thine arms sought Life’s last resting-place.

    Thy changing Kings and Kingdoms pass away,
    The gorgeous legends of a bygone day,
    But thou dost still immutably remain
    Unbroken symbol of proud histories,
    Unageing priestess of old mysteries
    Before whose shrine the spells of Death are vain.

             _Sarojini Naidu._




DIRGE

(_In sorrow of her bereavement_)


    What longer need hath she of loveliness,
    Whom Death has parted from her lord’s caress?
    Of glimmering robes like rainbow-tangled mist,
    Of gleaming glass or jewels on her wrist,
    Blossoms or fillet-pearls to deck her head,
    Or jasmine garlands to adorn her bed?

    Put by the mirror of her bridal days....
    Why needs she now its counsel or its praise,
    Or happy symbol of the henna leaf
    For hands that know the comradeship of grief,
    Red spices for her lips that drink of sighs,
    Or black collyrium for her weeping eyes?

    Shatter her shining bracelets, break the string
    Threading the mystic marriage-beads that cling
    Loth to desert a sobbing throat so sweet,
    Unbind the golden anklets on her feet,
    Divest her of her azure veils and cloud
    Her living beauty in a living shroud.

    Nay, let her be! ... what comfort can we give
    For joy so frail, for hope so fugitive?
    The yearning pain of unfulfilled delight,
    The moonless vigils of her lonely night,
    For the abysmal anguish of her tears,
    And flowering springs that mock her empty years?

             _Sarojini Naidu._




SPRING


    Young leaves grow green on the banyan twigs,
      And red on the peepul tree,
    The honey-birds pipe to the budding figs,
      And honey-blooms call to the bee.

    Poppies squander their fragile gold
      In the silvery aloe-brake;
    Coral and ivory lilies unfold
      Their delicate lives on the lake.

    Kingfishers ruffle the feathery sedge,
      And all the vivid air thrills
    With butterfly-wings in the wild-rose hedge,
      And the luminous blue of the hills.

             _Sarojini Naidu._




CRADLE-SONG


      From groves of spice,
      O’er fields of rice,
    Athwart the lotus-stream,
      I bring for you,
      Aglint with dew,
    A little lovely dream.

      Sweet, shut your eyes,
      The wild fire-flies
    Dance through the fairy _neem_;
      From the poppy-hole
      For you I stole
    A little lovely dream.

      Dear eyes, good-night,
      In golden light
    The stars around you gleam;
      On you I press
      With soft caress
    A little lovely dream.

             _Sarojini Naidu._




JUNE SUNSET


    Here shall my heart find its haven of calm,
    By rush-fringed rivers and rain-fed streams
    That glimmer thro’ meadows of lily and palm.
    Here shall my soul find its true repose
    Under a sunset sky of dreams
    Diaphanous, amber, and rose.
    The air is aglow with the glint and whirl
    Of swift wild wings in their homeward flight,
    Sapphire, emerald, topaz, and pearl,
    Afloat in the evening light.

    A brown quail cries from the tamarisk bushes,
    A bulbul calls from the cassia-plume,
    And thro’ the wet earth the gentian pushes
    Her spikes of silvery bloom.
    Where’er the foot of the bright shower passes
    Fragrant and fresh delights unfold;
    The wild fawns feed on the scented grasses,
    Wild bees on the cactus-gold.

    An ox-cart stumbles upon the rocks,
    And a wistful music pursues the breeze,
    From a shepherd’s pipe as he gathers his flocks
    Under the pipal-trees.
    And a young Banjara driving her cattle
    Lifts up her voice as she glitters by
    In an ancient ballad of love and battle
    Set to the beat of a mystic tune,
    And the faint stars gleam in the eastern sky
    To herald a rising moon.

             _Sarojini Naidu._




BUNKIM CHANDRA CHATTERJI


    How hast thou lost, O month of honey and flowers,
    The voice that was thy soul! Creative showers,
    The cuckoo’s daylong cry and moan of bees,
    Zephyrs and streams and tender-blossoming trees,
    And murmuring laughter and heart-easing tears
    And tender thoughts and great, and the compeers
    Of lily and jasmine and melodious birds,
    All these thy children into lovely words
    He changed at will and made soul-moving books
    From hearts of men and women’s honeyed looks.
    O master of delicious words! the bloom
    Of _champak_ and the breath of king-perfume
    Have made each musical sentence with the noise
    Of women’s ornaments and sweet household joys
    And laughter tender as the voice of leaves
    Playing with vernal winds. The eye receives,
    That reads these lines, an image of delight,
    A world with shapes of spring and summer, noon and night;
    All nature in a page, no pleasing show
    But men more real than the friends we know.
    O plains, O hills, O rivers of sweet Bengal,
    O land of love and flowers, the spring-bird’s call
    And southern wind are sweet among your trees:
    Your poet’s words are sweeter far than these.
    Your heart was this man’s heart. Subtly he knew
    The beauty and divinity in you.
    His nature kingly was and as a god
    In large serenity and light he trod
    His daily way, yet beauty, like soft flowers
    Wreathing a hero’s sword, ruled all his hours.
    Thus moving in these iron times and drear,
    Barren of bliss and robbed of golden cheer,
    He sowed the desert with ruddy-hearted rose,
    The sweetest voice that ever spoke in prose.

             _Sri Aurobindo Ghose._




A ROSE OF WOMEN


    Now lilies blow upon the windy height,
    Now flowers the pansy kissed by tender rain,
    Narcissus builds his house of self-delight
    And Love’s own fairest flower blooms again;
    Vainly your gems, O meadows, you recall;
    One simple girl breathes sweeter than you all.

             _Sri Aurobindo Ghose._
                       (_Meleager._)




THE ISLAND GRAVE


    Ocean is there, and evening; the slow moan
      Of the blue waves that like a shaken robe
    Two heard together once, one hears alone.

      Now gliding white and hushed towards our globe
    Keen January with cold eyes and clear
      And snowdrops pendent in each frosty lobe

    Ushers the firstborn of the radiant year.
      Haply his feet, that grind the breaking mould,
    May brush the dead grass on thy secret bier;

      Haply his joyless fingers wan and cold
    Caress the ruined masses of thy hair,
      Pale child of winter, dead ere youth was old.

    Art thou so desolate in that bitter air
      That even his breath feels warm upon thy face?
    Ah! till the daffodil is born, forbear,

      And I will meet thee in that lonely place,
    Then the grey dawn shall end my hateful days
      And death admit me to the silent ways.

             _Sri Aurobindo Ghose._




INVITATION


    With wind and the weather beating round me
      Up to the hill and the moorland I go.
    Who will come with me? Who will climb with me?
      Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow?

    Not in the petty circle of cities
      Cramped by your doors and your walls I dwell;
    Over me God is blue in the welkin,
      Against me the wind and the storm rebel.

    I sport with solitude here in my regions,
      Of misadventure have made me a friend.
    Who would live largely? who would live freely?
      Here to the wind-swept uplands ascend.

    I am the lord of tempest and mountain,
      I am the Spirit of freedom and pride.
    Stark must he be and a kinsman to danger
      Who shares my kingdom and walks at my side.

             _Sri Aurobindo Ghose._




A CHILD’S IMAGINATION


    O thou golden image,
      Miniature of bliss,
    Speaking sweetly, speaking meetly!
      Every word deserves a kiss.

    Strange, remote, and splendid
      Childhood’s fancy pure
    Thrills to thoughts we cannot fathom,
      Quick felicities obscure.

    When the eyes grow solemn
      Laughter fades away,
    Nature of her mighty childhood
      Recollects the Titan play;

    Woodlands touched by sunlight
      Where the elves abode,
    Giant meetings, Titan greetings,
      Fancies of a youthful God.

    These are coming on thee
      In thy secret thought;
    God remembers in thy bosom
      All the wonders that He wrought.

             _Sri Aurobindo Ghose._




EVENING


    A golden evening, when the thoughtful sun
      Rejects its usual pomp in going, trees
    That bend down to their green companion
      And fruitful mother, vaguely whispering--these
    And a wide silent sea. Such hour is nearest God,
    Like rich old age when the long ways have all been trod.

             _Sri Aurobindo Ghose._




THE SEA AT NIGHT


    The grey sea creeps half-visible, half-hushed,
    And grasps with its innumerable hands
    These silent walls. I see beyond a rough
    Glimmering infinity, I feel the wash
    And hear the sibilation of the waves
    That whisper to each other as they push
    To shoreward side by side--long lines and dim
    Of movement flecked with quivering spots of foam,
    The quiet welter of a shifting world.

             _Sri Aurobindo Ghose._




LACHHI

_From a well-known Panjābī folk-song_


    Aha! When Lachhi spills water,
    Spills water, spills water, spills water,
    There sandal grows--where Lachhi spills water.

    Aha! Lachhi asks the girls,
    The girls, the girls, the girls,
    Oh, what coloured veil suits a fair complexion?

    Aha! The girls said truly,
    Said truly, said truly, said truly,
    A veil that is black becomes a fair complexion.

    What then your fortune, Lachhi?
    Your fortune, Lachhi, your fortune, Lachhi, your fortune, Lachhi?
    Ho! your boy like the moon, what then your fortune?

    Who’ll give you milk to drink, Lachhi?
    Drink Lachhi, drink Lachhi, drink Lachhi?
    Your friendship with the goatherds is sundered!
    Who’ll give you milk to drink?

[This song is sung to a purely folk-air, not in any definite _rāg_.]




AZMĒ


_Note._--The story goes that Gāmī wrote the song about a girl of Kutahār
(a village in the Maraz pargana of Kāshmīr) named Azmē, and that it
became the occasion of trouble for its author. Complaints were made
about Gāmī, and his father reported the matter to the Tahsildār of the
district; but the poet explained that Azmē meant “to-day” and that the
whole song had only a Sufī significance.

    Azmē, love of thee came to me, fortunate vision!
    Azmē, show me thy face, O darling.
        _Azmē, love of thee, etc._

    Say where shall I wait, in Shāngas or Naugām?
    An ill name I got in Kutahār!
        _Azmē, love of thee, etc._

    I sought thee in Achhaval, Brang, Kutahār--
    Lakhs of hardships I suffered, my darling.

    Pomegranate thy cheeks, or _saza-posh_--
    How dark are thine eyes, my darling!

    Shining thy brows as though with sweat--
    How many a one thy nose has slain, my darling!

    Sitting by the door, choosing saffron flowers,
    I know not for whom, my darling!

    What a famous spinning-wheel is there in Kolgām,
    Matchless its handle, my darling!

    Silver are the strings of thy spinning-wheel,
    Those who see it fall ill with wonder, my darling!

    Skilfully pounding the rice so fine,
    The good shape of the cypress has Azmē, my darling!

    Bright is her dress as a pearl,
    Short are the plaits of Azmē, my darling!

    Slowly combing her hair so fine--
    I will count up thy plaits, my darling!

    Kāmader has passed through Kutahār,
    All folk to him must yield (?), my darling!

    Hapless Māhmud, where shall he wait for thee?
    An ill name I won in Kutahār, my darling!

             _Māhmud Gāmī._




AWAKE, MY FRIEND


    Awake, my friend!
    Be glad, spring has come!

    Spread jasmine on the balconies,
    Lasting is the glory of jasmine!

    From afar I saw the Beloved come hither,
    That _Hourī_ came to my courtyard!

    Breast to breast he embraced me before the people,
    Openly was his coming to be seen by any!

    Ah, burn my blood to clots of fondness,
    Accomplish (in my heart) the love of Islam!

    These things thou shouldst not reveal among drunkards,
    Lest to-morrow there be reproach!

    Māhmud Vāzah will tell the secret of Love,
    Hans Rāja shall he be named!

             _Māhmud Vāzah._




MARRIAGE SONG


    Spring has come, with almond blossom,
    All about Shārikā Dēvī!
    Flower-beds are walled about--
    Flowers I’ll offer, night and morn!

    Spring has come, with almond blossom,
    All about Rāginyā Dēvī!
    Lotus flowers are walled about--
    Milk I’ll pour her, night and morn!

    Spring has come, with almond blossom,
    All about Zālā Dēvī!
    Mint-plants are walled about--
    Pūjā I’ll make, night and morn!

    Spring has come, with almond blossom,
    All about Shivajī!
    Sandal trees are walled about--
    I will anoint Him night and morn!

    Spring has come, with almond blossom,
    All about Nārāyan!
    Tulsi plants are walled about--
    Saffron I’ll rub night and morn!

             _Ananda Coomaraswamy._

_Note._--By the names Shārikā, Rāginyā, etc., are meant places as well
as the divinities worshipped. Thus Shārikā (Satī, Pārvatī) is Hari
Parbat, where there is a festival to Shārikā in March; Rāginyā (Kīr
Bavānī) is an island at Inlamul, where there is a festival in May; Zālā
(another form of Pārvatī) is a hill where there is a festival in June;
Shivajī is a village in the Zainager pargana; Nārāyan is a _tīrtha_ near
Bāramuta.




MYSTIC LOVE SONG FROM “THIRTY INDIAN SONGS”


    _Quietly come, O Beauty, come!_
    O! cups of wine I’ll fill for thee.
    Come to our house, O Beauty, come;
    Come as a guest, O Beauty, come:
    _Quietly come, O Beauty, come!_

    Borders twain thy veil adorn;
    At early dawn, O Beauty, rise--
    _Quietly come, O Beauty, come!_

    A silken border thy veil adorns;
    Father has sent thee a cradle of bells--
    _Quietly come, O Beauty, come!_

    Hast thou come from the heavens, O lovely bird?
    Wilt come by thyself, or a snare shall I spread?
    _Quietly come, O Beauty, come!_

    He who made this golden bracelet,
    Was he only a goldsmith and never a master of craft?
    _Quietly come, O Beauty, come!_

             _Ananda Coomaraswamy._




THE PUNJAB AUTUMN: THE SEASON OF THE COOLING DEW

(_Composed on the birthday of Guru Nanak, 1916_)


I

    The piping of the rain-birds has ceased,
    _Dadar_ and _peepiya_ are silent now,
    The dance of the peacock is over,
    It is the season of the cooling dew!
    The dew is falling everywhere,
    And wet is every rose.
    The gentle breath of heaven blows.


II

    The clouds have stopped their thunder,
    The lightning has hidden her spark,
    The floods of the Punjab rivers have rolled away,
    The rivers have shrunk low;
    The storm is over, and the winds blow soft and slow.
    It is the season of the cooling dew!
    The dew is falling everywhere,
    And wet is every rose.
    The gentle breath of heaven blows.


III

    The sweet, sweet dew wets all with joy,
    Wet with joy are the night and the moon,
    And dewdrops quiver over the stars on high,
    And joy-wet blows the wind on my face.
    It is the season of the cooling dew!
    The dew is falling everywhere,
    And wet is every rose.
    The gentle breath of heaven blows.


IV

    The cool, soft touches of the falling dew calm my soul;
    And my mind, blessed with the dew-joys calm and cool, is at rest!
    My beloved! come to me as the dew of my eyes!
    Come to-day as the dew cometh!
    And cool my soul parched by the pain of long, long separation!
    My beloved! it is the season of the cooling dew!
    The dew is falling everywhere,
    And wet is every rose.
    The gentle breath of heaven blows.


V

    O master of the order of the _Seli_![18]
    O dweller of heaven!
    O great giver!
    My Guru Nanak! Come to me to-day!
    O light of lights!
    Thy seats are the sun and the moon!
    My beloved! return to me to-day!
    It is the season of the cooling dew!
    The dew is falling everywhere,
    And wet is every rose.
    The gentle breath of heaven blows.


VI

    It is the season of slumber and dew.
    Cruel is all separation!
    Pray remove the distances that divide me from thee.
    My beloved! it is the season of the cooling dew!
    The dew is falling everywhere,
    And wet is every rose.
    The gentle breath of heaven blows.


VII

    My love! stay no more in distant lands away from me!
    Come into the vacant courtyard of my heart!
    Dye my soul with the joys of thy presence,
    And make it now thy home.
    Stay at home! Go no more out of me!
    Dwell in my soul, before my eyes!
    And for ever be there the perennial draught of my eyes.
    My love! it is the season of the cooling dew!
    The dew is falling everywhere,
    And wet is every rose.
    The gentle breath of heaven blows.


VIII

    Fill my tearful gaze for ever with thy celestial face;
    And let my eyes be for ever wet with the joy of seeing thee!
    My love! dwell for ever in my eyes!
    It is the season of the cooling dew!
    The dew is falling everywhere,
    And wet is every rose.
    The gentle breath of heaven blows.


IX

    It is now the dewy season,
    The season of the happy meetings of love,
    The season of the quenching of all fires of pain.
    To me everything seems to be dew-wet;
    From the blue of heaven the dew is falling soft;
    It is the dew of deep, deep unions;
    And wonder and worship is in the eyes.
    The separated ones shall meet!
    It is the season of the cooling dew!
    The dew is falling everywhere,
    And wet is every rose.
    The gentle breath of heaven blows.


X

    Now is the time of everlasting embraces!
    My beloved! come, meet me to-day!
    Take me to thy bosom!
    The dew is flooding things with joy.
    My love! come to me!
    It is the season of the cooling dew!
    The dew is falling everywhere,
    And wet is every rose.
    The gentle breath of heaven blows.


XI

    The dew cometh from heaven down!
    It bringeth heavenly peace for all,
    It wetteth all with sweetness.
    Invisible, it raineth deep into souls,
    It raineth love and peace and joy.
    It raineth sweetness.
    Dew! dew! my comrades!
    It is the season of the cooling dew!
    The dew is falling everywhere,
    And wet is every rose.
    The gentle breath of heaven blows.

    (Trans.) _Puran Singh_
    (_Nārgās: Bhai Vir Singh_).




RÂJHANS (THE PRINCE OF SWANS)


Râjhans! The Golden Swan! Is it thy plumage that shines, or the sunrise
on the eternal snows?

The dweller of _Mân-Sarôwar_, the lake on the roof of the world! Thy
golden beak parts milk from water, in the living stream thou art a
liberated soul!

A rosary of spotless pearls is in thy beak, and how sublime is the lofty
curve of thy neck against the Heaven’s vast azure!

Thou livest on pearls, the nectar drops so pure of Hari Nam.

Great Soul! lover of the azure transparent Infinite! Thou canst not
breathe out of the _Mân-Sarôwar_ air, nor canst thou live out of sight
of those loftiest peaks of snow, and away from the diluted perfume of
musk blowing from the wild trail of the deer!

Thou art the spirit of Beauty, thou art far beyond the reach of human
thought. Thy isolation reflecteth the glory of the starry sky in thy
Nectar Lake of Heart in whose waters the sun daily dips himself!

Thou hast the limitless expanse of air, the companionship of fragrant
gods,

And yet we know thou leavest those Fair Abodes to come to share the woes
of human love;

Thou alightest unawares on the grain-filled barn of the humble farmer,
awakening Nature’s maiden hearts, thou informest love.

It is thy delight to see woman love man, the small ripplings of a human
heart in love flutter thee in thy lofty seat.

Thou art the soul liberated through love; thou knowest the worth of
love, flying for its sake even midst the cities’ smoke and dust,
perchance, to save a human soul through love!

    “Sisters of the Spinning-Wheel”:
    _Puran Singh_.




LATER LYRICS: POPLAR, BEECH, AND WEEPING WILLOW


I

    Shapely poplar, shivering white, poplar like a maiden,
    Thinking, musing softly here, so light and so unladen,
    That with every breath and stir, perpetually you gladden,
    Teach me your still secrecies of thought that never sadden.

    From the heavy-hearted earth, earth of grief and passion,
    Maiden, would you spring with me, and leave men’s lowly fashion,
    Skyward lift with me your thoughts in cumberless elation,
    Every leaf and every shoot a virgin aspiration.

    The blue day, the floating clouds, the stars shall you for palace
    Proffer their cathedral pomp, dawn her rosy chalice.
    Where the birds are, you shall throng and revel to be lonely
    In the blue of heaven to spire and sway with breezes only.


II

    Beech, of leafy isles the queen, beech, of trees the lady,
    Soaring to a tower of sighs, in branches soft and shady,
    You that sunward lift your strength, to make of shadow duty,
    Teach me, tree, your heavenly height, and earth-remembering beauty.

    Maiden, would you soar like me, with day-upclouding tresses,
    Beauty into bounty change, bend down the eye that blesses;
    Make from heaven a shelter cool, to shepherd and sheep silly
    Shadowing with shadiness, hot rose and fainting lily.

    Through your glorious heart of gloom, the noonday wind awaking
    In an ecstasy shall set swaying, blowing, shaking;
    Leafy branches, in their nests set the sweet birds rocking
    Till their happy song break out, the noonday ardour mocking.

    Willow sweet, willow sad, willow by the river,
    Taught by pensive love to droop, where ceaseless waters shiver,
    Teach me, steadfast sorrower, your mournful grace of graces;
    Weeping to make beautiful the silent water-places.

    Maiden, would you learn of me the loveliness of mourning,
    Droop into the chill, wan wave, strength, hardness, lofty scorning;
    Drench your drooping soul in tears, content to love and languish,
    Gaze in sorrow’s looking-glass, and see the face of anguish?

    In the very wash of woe, as your bowed soul shall linger,
    You shall touch the sheer, bright stars, and on the moon set finger;
    You shall hear, where brooks have birth, the mountain-pine’s emotion,
    Catch upon the broadening stream the sound and swell of ocean.

             _Manmohan Ghose._




ORPHIC MYSTERIES: THE YELLOW BUTTERFLY


    Of all shy visitants, I love
      That darling butterfly,
    Whose wings are to the cornfield’s wave
      A hovering reply.

    Yellow as dancing wheat-ears ripe
      He suns with his gay youth,
    And feeds me with the gold of light,
      The thrice-tried gleam of truth.

    When, glooming back upon myself,
      The garden path I pace,
    He comes and makes my gladdened eyes
      The dial to his grace.

    Unfailing omen, punctual sign!
      No sooner am I out,
    He hovers by on golden wings
      To chase the grey of doubt.

    All melancholy thoughts to thresh,
      Winnow the blissful grain
    Of immortality, and sift
      From mortal fear and pain.

    Day after day the marvel grows;
      Ever his gladsome morn
    Shines down the blackness of my grief
      With glancing wings of scorn.

    Now from the creeper’s bowery height,
      Now o’er the garden wall;
    From far-off places, or where first
      The wonder did befall.

    In that low bed of coxcomb flowers
      Beneath her window-sill,
    Her chamber-window, where he warms
      Homeward my spirit still;

    Or plumb-down from the soaring roof
      He to my awful eye
    His radiant message angels me
      From azure depths of sky.

    I cannot with ungrateful heart
      Feel God’s fair world a blank.
    Straight for the sunny thought of her
      His yellow wings I thank.

    I cannot still, her sight to want,
      Weep like a thwarted boy,
    Cry outright, but with darting gold
      He chides me back to joy.

    The stupor of the miracle
      Ever renewed, the fear,
    I lose in charmed tranquillity,
      For she, my saint, is here.

    Who works it? No dead relic sweet
      Of her, my living saint,
    Perfect beyond the skill of thought
      Of fancy’s power to paint.

    Whole from her suffering martyrdom
      She is arisen. No tomb
    Could hold her, no far blissful heaven
      Allure. Her heaven is home.

    No place more holy than these walks,
      This garden, where the flowers
    Swing censers breathing up to God,
      This house a Book of Hours.

    No room but memory’s sacred hand,
      Gilded, illuminate,
    Paints how she suffered, loved and died--
      The legend of her fate.

    In heaven she is; beatitude
      To her; her loved ones still,
    So loving she, here, here, enskyed
      To guard. It is God’s will.

    Here in the old sweet home where, still
      A guardian spirit, she
    Heals, comforts, counsels, and performs
      Her angel ministry.

             _Manmohan Ghose._




MYVANWY


    Oft hast thou heard it, that old true saying,
    ’Tis like and unlike makes the happiest music.
    Then, gravely smiling, scorn me not, Myvanwy,
              Fairest of maidens.

    Thou who in sunlight sittest, pensive leaning
    At the open window, thy hand deep-buried
    In dark sweet clusters of thy hair, and gazest
              O’er the wide ocean.

    Yes, o’er the ocean far, far in the distance,
    Is my own country, and other soil bore me
    Than thy dear birthplace, other sun than England’s
              Nourished my spirit.

    Yet for this slight not my heart as alien:
    What can green England show to match those regions
    Save thyself only, what hath she that merits
              Prouder remembrance?

    Nothing! nor any shore that hears the Ocean,
    Nothing can match their beauty! If Myvanwy
    Had but an exile’s sad heart in her bosom,
              She too would say so.

    She too would say so, and back in thought returning,
    How would her sweet eyes fill with tears of gladness,
    How would she marvel, the lovely maiden,
              Breathless with gazing!

    There, stretching lonely, do the giant mountains
    Rise with their ages of snows to heaven,
    Snows, the heart shudders, so far away seem they,
              Fearfully lovely:

    There is the tall palm, like her own dear stature,
    The land’s green lady, and riotously hang there,
    All for Myvanwy’s lips, the strange, delicious
              Fruits of the tropics;
    And the vast elephant that dreams for ages,
    Lost among dim leaves and things of old, remembers:
    Would he not, rousing at her name’s sweet rumour,
              Pace to behold her?

    Oh me! what glories would her eyes enkindle,
    Eyes with their quick imaginative rapture!
    How shall I picture to her all the strangeness,
              All the enchantment,

    In that enchanted land of noon? My heart faints
    And my tongue falters: for long ago, Myvanwy,
    Deep in the east where now but evening gathers,
              Lost is my country.

    Long ago hither in passionate boyhood,
    Lightly an exile, lightly leagues I wandered
    Over the bitter foam: so far Fate led me
              Only to love thee.

    Lost is that country, and all but forgotten
    ’Mid these chill breezes, yet still, oh, believe me,
    All her meridian suns and ardent summers
              Burn in my bosom.

             _Manmohan Ghose._




KISMET


    Before our births, Kussam, who makes our fate,
    Ordained us happy or unfortunate,
    And wrote upon our brow and on our hands
    The signs that tell to him who understands
    Our Destiny, decreed for good or ill.
    So pass the Wise, bending to Allah’s will,
    Their lives into His mighty hands resigned.

    One child is cherished; one to hands unkind
    Is given; one dies in life’s first shining dawn;
    One longs to die, but Death when called upon
    Turns from the supplicating voice his ear;
    One starves in poverty; one is Amir
    And drives his elephant in lordly state;
    One lives in love; one girdled round with hate
    Dwells ever in a bitter world of strife;
    One in the moment of this earthly life
    Is ruler, sitting on a regal seat;
    One crawls a slave, obedient at his feet.

    And Allah changes all as He desires,
    He is an artist whom His art inspires:
    This world the picture He is painting still.
    But with his share of fate He gave man will
    To fashion circumstance by its control,
    To make a path of healing for his soul,
    To act, to think, to feel aright until
    He knows his will as one with Allah’s will.

             _Inayat Khan._




TANSEN


    Tansen, the singer, in great Akbar’s Court
    Won great renown; through the Badshahi Fort
    His voice rang like the sound of silver bells
    And Akbar ravished heard. The story tells
    How the King praised him, gave him many a gem,
    Called him chief jewel in his diadem.
    One day the singer sang the Song of Fire,
    The Deepak _Râg_, and burning like a pyre
    His body burst into consuming flame.
    To cure his burning heart a maiden came
    And sang Malhar, the song of water cold,
    Till health returned, and comfort as of old.
    “Mighty thy Teacher must be and divine,”
    Great Akbar said; “magic indeed is thine,
    Learnt at his feet.” Then happy Tansen bowed
    And said, “Beyond the world’s ignoble crowd,
    Scorning its wealth, remote and far-away
    He dwells within a cave of Himalay.”
    “Could I but see him once,” desired the King,
    “Sit at his feet awhile, and listening
    Hear his celestial song, I would deny
    My state and walk in robes of poverty.”
    Then said Tansen, “As you desire, Huzoor,
    Indeed ’twere better as a slave and poor
    To come; for he, lifted above the things
    Of earth, disdains to sing to earthly kings.”
    Long was the road, and Akbar as a slave
    Followed Tansen who rode towards the cave
    High in the mountains. At the singer’s feet
    They knelt and prayed with supplication sweet:
    “Towards thy shrine, lo, we have journeyed long,
    O Holy Master, bless us with thy song!”
    Then Ostad, won by their humility,
    Sang songs of peace and high felicity;
    The Malkous _Raga_ all ecstatic rang
    Till birds and beasts, enchanted as he sang,
    Gathered to hear. O’er Akbar’s dreaming soul
    He felt the waves of heavenly rapture roll,
    But, as he turned to speak his words of praise,
    Ostad had vanished from his wondering gaze.
    “Tell me, Tansen, what theme this is that holds
    The soul enchanted, and the heart enfolds
    In high delight”; and, when he knew the name,
    “Tell me,” again he said, “could you the same
    Theme sing to lure my heart to paths untrod?”
    “Ah no, to thee I sing; he sings to God.”

             _Inayat Khan._




    The high ambition of the drop of rain
      Is to be merged in the unfettered sea;
    My sorrow when it passed all bounds of pain,
      Changing, became itself the remedy.

    Behold how great is my humility!
      Under your cruel yoke I suffered sore;
    Now I no longer feel thy tyranny,
      I hunger for the pain that then I bore.

    Why did the fragrance of the flowers outflow
      If not to breathe with benediction sweet
    Across her path? Why did the soft wind blow
      If not to kiss the ground before her feet?

                          _Ghalib._




    How difficult is the thorny way of strife
      That man hath stumbled in since time began!
    And in the tangled business of this life
      How difficult to play the part of man!

    When she decrees there should exist no more
      My humble cottage, through its broken walls,
    And cruelly drifting in the open door,
      The frozen rain of desolation falls.

    O mad Desire, why dost thou flame and burn
      And bear my soul further and further yet
    To the Belovéd? Then, why dost thou turn
      To bitter disappointment and regret?

    Such light there gleams from the Belovéd’s face
      That every eye becomes her worshipper,
    And every mirror, looking on her grace,
      Desires to be the frame enclosing her.

    Unhappy lovers, slaves of cruel chance,
      In this grim place of slaughter strange indeed
    Your joy to see unveiled her haughty glance
      That flashes like the scimitar of Ede.

    When I had hardly drawn my latest breath,
      Pardon she asked for killing me. Alas!
    How soon repentance followed on my death,
      How quick her unavailing sorrow was!

                          _Ghalib._




    Thy beauty flashes like a sword
      Serene and keen and merciless;
    But great as is thy cruelty,
      Even greater is thy loveliness.

    It is the gift of God to thee,
      This beauty rare and exquisite;
    Why dost thou hide it thus from me?
      I shall not steal nor sully it.

    And as thy beauty shines, in Heaven
      There climbs upon its path of fire
    The star that lights my rival’s way,
      And with it mounts his heart’s desire.

    Even in thy house is jealousy,
      Thy youth demands the lover’s praise
    Over thy beauty, which itself
      Is jealous of thy gracious ways.

    I died with joy when winningly
      I heard the Well-Beloved call--
    Zahir, where is my beauty gone?
      Thou must have robbed me after all.

                          _Zahir._




    I shall not try to flee the sword of Death,
      Nor, fearing it, a watchful vigil keep;
    It will be nothing but a sigh, a breath,
      A turning on the other side to sleep.

    Through all the close entanglements of earth
      My spirit shaking off its bonds shall fare
    And pass, and rise in new unfettered birth,
      Escaping from this labyrinth of care.

    Within the mortal caravanserai
      No rest and no abiding place I know;
    I linger here for but a fleeting day,
      And at the morrow’s summoning I go.

    What are these bonds that try to shackle me?
      Through all their intricate chains my way I find;
    I travel like a wandering melody
      That floats untamed, untaken, on the wind.

    From an unsympathetic world I flee
      To you, your love and fellowship I crave,
    O Singers dead, Sauda and Mushafi,
      I lay my song as tribute on your grave.

                          _Amir._




VOICE IN THE AIR


_The vaulted roof opens. The guests feel that a Being is entering from
above. They see nothing, but all hear a voice in the air._

    High above the clouds in the Home of Light I
        dwell.
    My days are passed in the peace of Great Understanding.
    For their welfare do I visit men in all corners of
        the earth.
    At the command of the Mother I move, up and
        down, East and West, showering the rays of
        Freedom upon all;
    The Mother is the Circle, I am but a curve;
    The Mother is the Whole, I am but a part;
    The Mother is the Opening Lotus, I am but a
        single petal;
    The Mother is the Ocean of Honey, I am but a
        thirsty bee.
    Men call me Lord of the Sky and Father of the
        Heavens. They know naught who speak
        thus.
    I am the Space and its all-infilling Light and the
        sight in Man’s eyes which sees them both;
    I am the Sense whereby Man knows the Quarters;
    I dwell in peace, encompassing all these living
        orbs of light;
    I know the secret of the Primal Song; the gods
        are all the offspring of a Song, by them unheard;
    I keep the record of men’s thoughts in my infinite
        House of Sky;
    From æon to æon I hold up the Mirror of Thought
        to each man’s mind, to lead him across the
        shoreless Sea of Mirage;
    Yet I do but the bidding of the Mother of Eternal
        Power;
    I am in all hearts, save only those where Love is
        not.

_The Being rises up through the open roof, and the guests hear his voice
dying away in the far-off sky. The vault of the Hall closes. The
southern door opens. A Being enters. They hear his voice._

VOICE IN THE AIR:

    By the will of the Mother I am the Lord of the
        Air;
    I reign over all who breathe;
    I carry sweet fragrance from ocean to ocean;
    My song is heard in the mountain forest, but
        men hear not my music in the clouds;
    My home is near to the Lord of the Heart;
    I am the Lord of Life’s Brother and Playmate;
    I walk with Man from the door of Birth to the
        door of Death; waking and sleeping, by day
        and by night, I watch over him;
    I sweep from Pole to Pole and none can withstand
        my power;
    I am the Friend of the Flowers--from one to
        another I bear sweet messages of love;
    This all I do at the command of the Mother of
        Life.
    There stands the Mother tenderly smiling, filling
        with sweetness the Quarters of the Heavens.
        Yea, like a spreading mountain pine She
        stands in the soft autumn twilight, and it
        pleases Her that I play upon my reed for
        the comfort of all creatures that breathe.

_The light dies out, leaving the Hall in darkness. After a while a kind
of murky earth-light diffuses itself over the lower part of the Hall.
The guests hear the sound of a mighty crying, like the wailing of a
sacked city in the far distance. A voice, broken by sighs and groans,
speaks from below._

VOICE:

    I come. Ye ask, “Who art thou?” Gods have
        not named me. I call myself “Humanity”;
    I dwell on land and in the seas; I sweep through
        the air and the ether.
    I am man and woman and the intermediate one;
    I am the ape and the tiger and the lamb.
    I wander in the woods of dark continents as the
        savage cannibal; I watch by the bedside
        of the sick in the home of mercy.
    I am ferocity in the beast of prey; I am compassion
        in the heart of the mother.
    I devour my own offspring; I sacrifice myself to
        save others.
    I change--every moment, every season, every
        æon;
    I fill the pages of my history with romances
        written in blood;
    Out of my dreams of heaven I create this earth;
    I wax strong and wage war to please Death;
    I laugh at Death and hurl him into the flaming
        furnace of hell--and this I do to please my
        children.
    I enter the portals of Life with strong crying--and
        with a sigh I bid farewell to Life.
    I am prophet; I am idiot;
    I am king and shepherd and fisherman.
    I put my foot on the neck of kings and shepherds
        and fishermen and turn them into dust;
    And with their dust do I besmear myself and
        madly dance over green meadows.
    I am--what ye fear to think of me; I will be--what
        ye love to dream of me.
    But I will baffle all your fond expectations and
        all your clever calculations;
    In a moment of infinite time I will take the whole
        world by the hand and lift it up to the heaven
        of my heart.
    I am the most erring of the High Mother’s children,
        but one sure instinct I possess--I stand erect
        the moment I fall, and by the aid of the very
        obstacle that caused my fall do I rise again.
    I sorrow not over my shortcomings and my
        sufferings;
    I hope--yet know that my hopes are too wild to
        be realised.
    In a part of Space called the Corner of Pain I
        have made my home;
    I breathe the atmosphere of pain--I drink from
        the well of pain--I eat the fruits of the tree
        of pain--my sleep is troubled by the dream
        of pain.
    I love not Pain--Pain loves me;
    The whole history of my existence is a constant
        fleeing from this cruel lover of mine;
    I have prayed to God to be delivered from him--has
        He heard my prayer?
    I have worshipped a million lesser divinities--nature-gods,
        man-gods, god-gods--throughout
        the ages, hoping to be relieved of pain--have
        they saved me?
    I have believed in prophets, saviours, saints--have
        they healed me?
    I have listened to philosophers, scientists,
        magicians--have they protected me?
    Kings, statesmen, law-givers have boldly proclaimed
        the gospel of peace and security--have
        they not themselves plunged the
        poisoned dagger into my heart?
    I am old as Eternity--yet I feel not the burden
        of eternal years;
    I am young as the babe of to-day--yet I am wise
        as all the hoary Bible-makers of all the races
        of the earth.
    I am one--I am many; I am spirit, ghost, man,
        animal, and tree: yet my hidden life flows
        ever with passionate impetuosity towards
        the distant future above the heads of
        nations.
    To me the least is not less than the greatest; in
        all I am their sensitiveness to pain--the pain
        of a perpetual new birth of cosmos or of
        chaos.
    I am large, and my largeness moves me to face
        great pain for the avoiding of great pain;
    I am strong, and my strength lies in discovering
        the source of consolation even in the moment
        of suffering from suffering itself;
    I am inured to pain--so that I delight in excitement
        that brings pain and inflicts pain.
    Who brought this pain upon me? Had it been
        God-given, God would one day have taken
        it away; has He taken it away?
    Had it been the gift of Nature, I would have
        revenged myself upon her; but I feel no
        enmity to Nature--I desire that she be
        endless, infinite, that I may ever conquer
        her;
    I desire to be charmed by her--yet to be her
        master; I wonder, shall I ever wish to end
        this play?

    Deeming myself the mother of my pain, I seek
        the aid of floods and earthquakes, war and
        pestilence and famine, to bring destruction
        on myself; but ever by a mysterious magic
        I rise from my own ashes and live again;
        and after my resurrection, sitting in the
        dawn-light by the waveless ocean, Psyche
        comes and whispers to my heart: “Not
        thou, O sweet Humanity, art cause of thine
        own pain!”
    And I muse: If I be the father of my sufferings,
        how can I desire to live again? How can I
        inflict pain upon myself? How can I construct
        machinery for my own torture?
    I know that my nature is rooted in contradiction;
        have I perhaps sought to grow at the cost
        of happiness and peace?
    Bright Powers in the heavens are watching over
        my mysterious destiny. Have they lauded
        me as good and true and beautiful? Have
        they condemned me as bad and false and
        ugly? Who will say whether I am developing
        aright? Who will say whether the
        daily use to which I am constrained to put
        my life is not frustrating the Eternal Purpose?
    I am left alone with my unforeseeing understanding
        and my ever forward-springing
        untamable energy.

    My knowledge embraces not the whole reality.
        Perchance my sensitiveness to pain has
        sprung from my limited uncomprehending
        understanding. True, in my own eyes I
        grow from ugliness to beauty, from ignorance
        to knowledge, from slavery to freedom, from
        sin to holiness. I make progress in culture
        and civilisation--but I rise to the zenith
        only to descend to the nadir.
    Henceforth I will seek new and inward space for
        my progress. In the coming age I will
        seek to bore a tunnel in the spirit, to find an
        inner path to the Divinity of my Heart.
        But I will not destroy the bridges which I
        have built during the past ages, linking
        this earth with the distant divinity of suns
        and moons and stars.
    I will be free, glorious, and immortal.

             _The Voice ceases._

    _Śrī Ānanda Āchārya._




    All this is rhythm.
    May-fields, child-hearts, evening skies,
    Grow corn and wisdom and stars
    By the throb of rhythm;
    And Muses from the Milky Way
    Nightly visit
    The sleeping poet’s downy pillow
    By the law of rhythm;
    And angels bring him faces
    Flushed with morning’s rose,
    Tinted with even’s quiet,
    By the sweet impulse of rhythm.
    Wait, O soul!
    Outside thy door, upon the green,
    Heaven stands expectant,
    Waiting to be ushered in
    By Rhythm,
    Just now--or perchance to-morrow.

             _Śrī Ānanda Āchārya._

    From “Usarika.”




    Friend, dwell thou
      within my ruby-lotus heart of dreams;
    Friend, see thyself
      in the diamond mirror of my heart of hopes;
    Friend, sport with me
      in the garden-walks of my heart, fringed with everlastings;
    Friend, sleep thou on the shore of the song-throated
       ocean of my heart;
    Friend, shine in me
      like sunlight in the heart of a rose-bud of jade.

             _Śrī Ānanda Āchārya._

    From “Usarika.”




    Thou art the rose,
      I am the honey;
    Thou drinkest the light
      of the four heavens,
    And my soul is suffused
      with the rainbow of seven tints;
    I give myself
      to the bees
    And become a song
      on the wings of winds
      that sing to the gods
      and the fleecy clouds
      and the sleeping children of Life.

             _Śrī Ānanda Āchārya._

    From “Usarika” (Dawn-Rhythms).




    Snow-blossoms,
      snow-blossoms,
    Are
      you alive?

    In your heart
      I see
      the image
      of
      the heavens,
      the disc
      of
      the sun,

    And
      when clouds
      veil
      the face
      of
      the sky
      I see
      your facets
      tinted
      with
      the ink
      of
      dark sorrow.

    Children of Varun,
      sweet guests
      of
      late Autumn,
      you too
      hear
      the whispers
      of
      Immortality.

    Like
      our village sons,
      dwelling
      in
      lighted cottages
      by
      the gloom-canopied
      graves
      of
      their departed
      ancestors.

             _Śrī Ānanda Āchārya._

    From “Saki” (The Comrade).




    The
      rose of eternity
      is
      my heart,
      the
      sun-gold honey
      is
      my love
      for
      my Saki,
      the
      honey-bees
      are
      my sighs and songs,
      the
      river
      is
      my feeling
      of
      life,
      and
      the light
      of
      my Saki’s
      eyes
      is
      the true life
      of
      the red rose.

    What
      grey dews
      or
      blind canker
      can harm
      this
      ever-smiling
      rose
      of
      my heart?

             _Śrī Ānanda Āchārya._

    From “Saki.”




    The blue
      of
      Indra
      is
      thy laughter
      frozen
      into
      the
      sky-ocean
      and
      these stars
      and
      this earth
      are
      frozen lilies
      and
      we
      living creatures
      are
      frozen bees.

    O Saki,
      laugh
      no
      more.

             _Śrī Ānanda Āchārya._

    From “Saki.”




    The shadow
      of
      a
      flying bird
      across
      the
      sun’s disc
      fell
      on
      the
      still floor
      of
      my morning-quiet
      cave
      and
      vanished--

    Like
      the memory
      of
      one
      who
      passing
      through
      the
      bright shade
      of
      my garden trees
      of
      early days
      entered
      into
      the
      deep shadows
      of
      another’s
      garden trees.

             _Śrī Ānanda Āchārya._

    From “Saki.”




LOVE’S _SAMĀDHI_[19]


    Ah, Love, I sink in the timeless sleep,
      Sink in the timeless sleep;
    One Image stands before my eyes,
      And thrills my bosom’s deep:
    One Vision bathes in radiant light
      My spirit’s palace-halls;
    All stir of hand, all throb of brain,
      Quivers, and sinks, and falls.
    My soul fares forth; no fetters now
      Chain me to this world’s shore.
    Sleep! I would sleep! In pity spare;
      Let no man wake me more!

             _Nārāyan Vāman Tilak._




A CRADLE SONG


    Hush thee, hush thee, baby Christ,
      Lord of all mankind,--
    Thou the happy lullaby
      Of my mind.

    Hush thee, hush thee, Jesus, Lord,
      Stay of all that art,--
    Thou the happy lullaby
      Of my heart.

    Hush thee, hush thee, home of peace,--
      Lo! Love lying there!--
    Thou the happy lullaby
      Of my care.

    Hush thee, hush thee, Soul of mine,
      Setting all men free--
    Thou the happy lullaby
      Of the whole of me.

             _Nārāyan Vāman Tilak._




THE WAY OF POVERTY


    Thou hadst no servants to attend on Thee;
    Then why this pomp of household state for me?
    Coarse fare and scanty was Thy portion, Lord;
    Then why for me this richly-furnished board?
    Thou hadst not where to lay Thy head to rest;
    Then why should I of mansions be possessed?
    Ah, hapless I! What is this tyranny?
    How dost Thou laugh and make a mock of me!
    Ah, take from me this burden that doth bow
    My head! blest ocean of all love art Thou!
    I speak in anger, Lord; yet, if Thou too
    Reject my prayer, what can Thy servant do?
    Saith Dāsa, Christ, upon Thy pallet-bed
    Grant me a little space to lay my head.

             _Nārāyan Vāman Tilak._




THE LAST PRAYER


    Lay me within Thy lap to rest;
      Around my head Thine arm entwine;
    Let me gaze up into Thy face,
      O Father-Mother mine!

    So let my spirit pass with joy,
      Now at the last, O Tenderest!
    Saith Dāsa, Grant Thy wayward child
      This one, this last request.

             _Nārāyan Vāman Tilak._




UNION WITH CHRIST


    As the moon and its beams are one,
      So that I be one with Thee,
    This is my prayer to Thee, my Lord,
      This is this beggar’s plea.

    I would snare Thee and hold Thee ever,
      In loving wifely ways;
    I give Thee a daughter’s welcome,
      I give Thee a sister’s praise.

    As words and their meaning are linked,
      Serving one purpose each,
    Be Thou and I so knit, O Lord,
      And through me breathe Thy speech.

    O be my soul a mirror clear,
      That I may see Thee there;
    Dwell in my thought, my speech, my life,
      Making them glad and fair.

    Take Thou this body, O my Christ,
      Dwell as its soul within;
    To be an instant separate
      I count a deadly sin.

             _Nārāyan Vāman Tilak._




PEACE


    It is the hour of sunset, and the sky
    Is robed in purple, as a lovely bride
    With ruby lips and veil thrown half aside,
    Waiting for her sweet lord with longing eye.
    The air is fresh and fragrant, and the sea
    In smiling joy its boundless bosom heaves,
    With ringing music of the rising waves;
    And far from here its weary whisper leaves
    The broken echo of a world that raves;
    Its murmur hushed in new-born notes of glee.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Lulled by the laughter of the sky and earth,
    The heart forgets her sorrow and suspends
    Her breath in silent rapture and descends
    Upon the soul the vision of its birth.
    Immeasurable waters! and the sky
    Immeasurable! and this wondrous light
    In rainbow smiles of India, all around--
    Resting and rocking and rolling in delight,
    And swelling with the mirth of many a sound
    That fills the ocean’s ears unceasingly.

           *       *       *       *       *

    And now the mantle of approaching night
    Falls gently o’er the drowsy eyes of day;
    The roseate glow of evening melts away,
    Softly beyond the western waves, to white.
    Now o’er the earth a veil of mystery
    In silver silence all around is spread;
    And not a sound is heard or sight is seen
    Except the lingering echoes hither led
    Of boatmen’s shouts, and distant lights between
    The mingling bosoms of the sky and sea.

           *       *       *       *       *

    The moon hath risen, and the stars appear,
    And heaven is watching with the eyes of light;
    And in my heart a newer hope is bright
    With varied splendours of the atmosphere.
    The mind is hushed and all its motions cease
    Of wayward fancy and unquiet thought;
    And in the happy island of the soul
    Awakes a joy in radiance unforgot--
    Which o’er the world’s tumultuous uncontrol
    Doth smile, and softly whisper, “Here is Peace!”

             _Nanikram Vasanmal Thadani._


FOOTNOTES:

[1] The new leaves are red, _are_ the rosy kisses. Also, _palas_ and
pomegranate both have red blossoms.

[2] This poem deliberately takes off from the loveliest of all Bengali
popular songs, Ramprasad’s “This day will surely pass, this day will
pass” (see _Bengali Religious Lyrics_, Thompson and Spencer, Oxford
University Press).

[3] India has six seasons to our four.

[4] Urvasi, in older (_i.e._ Sanskrit) mythology, is a famous courtesan
and dancing-girl at the court of Indra, King of the Gods. Her
adventures were many; she was often sent to lure sages aside from their
devotions, lest they obtained super-divine powers and threatened the
dominion of the Gods (see stanza 4). But in Tagore’s poem she is very
much more than her legendary character. The poem is a tangle--Indian
mythology, modern science, European romance. She is the cosmic spirit
of life, in the mazes of its eternal dance; she is Beauty dissociated
from all human relationships; she is that world-enchanting Love which
(though not in Dante’s sense) “moves the sun and other stars,” is
Lucretius’s _hominum divumque voluptas, Alma Venus_, is Swinburne’s
“perilous goddess,” “sea-foam-born.”

I have adopted a quasi-metrical form which I hope will indicate the
general outline of the stanza in which this magnificent ode is written.

[5] When the Gods churned the Ocean, to recover the lost nectar of
immortality, Urvasi first appeared, one of many good and bad things
that came to light. With the nectar came out poison, which threatened
the life of all creatures, till Siva drank it to save the worlds.
Tagore has invented Urvasi’s responsibility for the nectar and poison
being brought forth; at any rate, I know of no other authority for line
4 of this stanza.

[6] A jasmine.

[7] In Sanskrit mythology, heaven, the atmosphere, and earth; in later
mythology, generally heaven, earth, and the underworld.

[8] In Indian mythology, there are Mounts of Sunrise and Sunsetting.

[9] From the _Mādhabī_.

[10] Sanskrit Urvasī.

[11] _I.e._ the _vīnā_, the lute.

[12] From the _Kanyādhūp_.

[13] From the _Patralekha_.

[14] From the _Patralekha_.

[15] “Spring fifth” is the fifth day of the light fortnight of the
month of Māgh, when Sarasvati, the goddess of letters and wisdom, who
loves the _vīnā_, lute, is worshipped. The month of Māgh corresponds to
January-February.

[16] I.e. the goddess who carries the _vīnā_, or lute, in her hand.

[17] The thousand-headed snake of Heaven.

[18] _Seli_, or the small round string made of black wool that Guru
Nanak used to wear at times.

[19] _Samādhi_ is the mystic’s “ecstasy,” in which all consciousness of
the material world is lost and the soul is face to face with the Real.






*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74751 ***