Unending Love
I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age-old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
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poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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On the Seashore
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.
poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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The Gardener XIV: I Was Walking by the Road
I was walking by the road, I do not
know why, when the noonday was past
and bamboo branches rustled in the
wind.
The prone shadows with their out-
stretched arms clung to the feet of
the hurrying light.
The koels were weary of their
songs.
I was walking by the road, I do not
know why.
The hut by the side of the water is
shaded by an overhanging tree.
Some on was busy with her work,
and her bangles made music in the
corner.
I stood before this hut, I know not
why.
The narrow winding road crosses
many a mustard field, and many a
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poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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Seashore
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
The infinite sky is motionless overhead
and the restless water is boisterous.
On the seashore of endless worlds
the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand
and they play with empty shells.
With withered leaves they weave their boats
and smilingly float them on the vast deep.
Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets.
Pearl fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships,
while children gather pebbles and scatter them again.
They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter
and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach.
Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children,
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poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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Vocation
When the gong sounds ten in the morning and I walk to school by our
lane.
Every day I meet the hawker crying, "Bangles, crystal
bangles!"
There is nothing to hurry him on, there is no road he must
take, no place he must go to, no time when he must come home.
I wish I were a hawker, spending my day in the road, crying,
"Bangles, crystal bangles!"
When at four in the afternoon I come back from the school,
I can see through the gate of that house the gardener digging
the ground.
He does what he likes with his spade, he soils his clothes
with dust, nobody takes him to task if he gets baked in the sun or
gets wet.
I wish I were a gardener digging away at the garden with
nobody to stop me from digging.
Just as it gets dark in the evening and my mother sends me to
bed,
I can see through my open window the watchman walking up and
down.
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poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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The Beginning
"Where have I come from, where did you pick me up?" the baby asked
its mother.
She answered, half crying, half laughing, and clasping the
baby to her breast-
"You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling.
You were in the dolls of my childhood's games; and when with
clay I made the image of my god every morning, I made the unmade
you then.
You were enshrined with our household deity, in his worship
I worshipped you.
In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my
mother you have lived.
In the lap of the deathless Spirit who rules our home you have
been nursed for ages.
When in girlhood my heart was opening its petals, you hovered
as a fragrance about it.
Your tender softness bloomed in my youthful limbs, like a glow
in the sky before the sunrise.
Heaven's first darling, twain-born with the morning light, you
have floated down the stream of the world's life, and at last you
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poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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The Gardener XI: Come As You Are
Come as you are; do not loiter over
your toilet.
If your braided hair has loosened if
the parting of your hair be not straight,
if the ribbons of your bodice be not
fastened, do not mind.
Come as you are; do not loiter over
your toilet.
Come, with quick steps over the
grass.
If the raddle come from your feet
because of the dew, of the rings of bells
upon your feet slacken, if pearls drop
out of your chain, do not mind.
Come, with quick steps over the
grass.
Do you see the clouds wrapping the
sky?
Flocks of cranes fly up from the
further river-bank and fitful gusts of
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poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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The Rainy Day
Sullen clouds are gathering fast over the black fringe of the
forest.
O child, do not go out!
The palm trees in a row by the lake are smiting their heads
against the dismal sky; the crows with their dragged wings are
silent on the tamarind branches, and the eastern bank of the river
is haunted by a deepening gloom.
Our cow is lowing loud, ties at the fence.
O child, wait here till I bring her into the stall.
Men have crowded into the flooded field to catch the fishes
as they escape from the overflowing ponds; the rain-water is
running in rills through the narrow lanes like a laughing boy who
has run away from his mother to tease her.
Listen, someone is shouting for the boatman at the ford.
O child, the daylight is dim, and the crossing at the ferry
is closed.
The sky seems to ride fast upon the madly rushing rain; the
water in the river is loud and impatient; women have hastened home
early from the Ganges with their filled pitchers.
The evening lamps must be made ready.
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poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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The Chanpa Flower
Supposing I became a chanpa flower, just for fun, and grew on a
branch high up that tree, and shook in the wind with laughter and
danced upon the newly budded leaves, would you know me, mother?
You would call, "Baby, where are you?" and I should laugh to
myself and keep quite quiet.
I should slyly open my petals and watch you at your work.
When after your bath, with wet hair spread on your shoulders,
you walked through the shadow of the champ tree to the little court
where you say your prayers, you would notice the scent of the
flower, but not know that it cane from me.
When after the midday meal you sat at the window reading
ramayana, and the tree's shadow fell over your hair and your lap,
I should fling my wee little shadow on to the page of your book,
just where you were reading.
But would you guess that it was the tiny shadow of your
little child?
When in the evening you went to the cow shed with the lighted
lamp in your hand I should suddenly drop on to the earth again and
be your own baby once more, and beg you to tell me a story.
"Where have you been, you naughty child?"
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poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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The Gardener X: Let Your Work Be, Bride
Let your work be, bride. Listen, the
guest has come.
Do you hear, he is gently shaking
the chain which fastens the door?
See that your anklets make no loud
noise, and that your step is not over-
hurried at meeting him.
Let your work be, bride, the guest
had come in the evening.
No, it is not the ghostly wind, bride,
do not be frightened.
It is the full moon on a night of
April; shadows are pale in the court-
yard; the sky overhead is bright.
Draw your veil over your face if
you must, carry the lamp to the door
if you fear.
No, it is not the ghostly wind, bride,
do not be frightened.
Have no word with him if you are
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poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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