The Complete Poetical Works of Rabindranath Tagore. Rabindranath Tagore

Ah, you broke through the cover of my heart and dragged my trembling love into the open place, destroying for ever the shady corner where it hid its nest.

       The other women are the same as ever.

       No one has peeped into their inmost being, and they themselves know not their own secret.

       Lightly they smile, and weep, chatter, and work.

       Daily they go to the temple, light their lamps, and fetch water from the river.

       I hoped my love would be saved from the shivering shame of the shelterless, but you turn your face away.

       Yes, your path lies open before you, but you have cut off my return, and left me stripped naked before the world with its lidless eyes staring night and day.

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      I plucked your flower, O world!

       I pressed it to my heart and the thorn pricked.

       When the day waned and it darkened, I found that the flower had faded, but the pain remained.

       More flowers will come to you with perfume and pride, O world!

       But my time for flower-gathering is over, and through the dark night I have not my rose, only the pain remains.

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      One morning in the flower garden a blind girl came to offer me a flower chain in the cover of a lotus leaf.

       I put it round my neck, and tears came to my eyes.

       I kissed her and said, "You are blind even as the flowers are.

       You yourself know not how beautiful is your gift."

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      O woman, you are not merely the handiwork of God, but also of men; these are ever endowing you with beauty from their hearts.

       Poets are weaving for you a web with threads of golden imagery; painters are giving your form ever new immortality.

       The sea gives its pearls, the mines their gold, the summer gardens their flowers to deck you, to cover you, to make you more precious.

       The desire of men's hearts has shed its glory over your youth.

       You are one half woman and one half dream.

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      Amidst the rush and roar of life, O Beauty, carved in stone, you stand mute and still, alone and aloof.

       Great Time sits enamoured at your feet and murmurs:

       "Speak, speak to me, my love; speak, my bride!"

       But your speech is shut up in stone, O Immovable Beauty!

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      Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet.

       Let it not be a death but completeness.

       Let love melt into memory and pain into songs.

       Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest.

       Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night.

       Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence.

       I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way.

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      In the dusky path of a dream I went to seek the love who was mine in a former life.

       Her house stood at the end of a desolate street.

       In the evening breeze her pet peacock sat drowsing on its perch, and the pigeons were silent in their corner.

       She set her lamp down by the portal and stood before me.

       She raised her large eyes to my face and mutely asked, "Are you well, my friend?"

       I tried to answer, but our language had been lost and forgotten.

       I thought and thought; our names would not come to my mind.

       Tears shone in her eyes.

       She held up her right hand to me.

       I took it and stood silent.

       Our lamp had flickered in the evening breeze and died.

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      Traveller, must you go?

       The night is still and the darkness swoons upon the forest.

       The lamps are bright in our balcony, the flowers all fresh, and the youthful eyes still awake.

       Is the time for your parting come?

       Traveller, must you go?

       We have not bound your feet with our entreating arms.

       Your doors are open.

       Your horse stands saddled at the gate.

       If we have tried to bar your passage it was but with our songs.

       Did we ever try to hold you back it was but with our eyes.

       Traveller, we are helpless to keep you.

       We have only our tears.

       What quenchless fire glows in your eyes?

       What restless fever runs in your blood?

       What call from the dark urges you?

       What awful incantation have you read among the stars in the sky, that with a sealed secret message the night entered your heart, silent and strange?

       If you do not care for merry meetings, if you must have peace, weary heart, we shall put our lamps out and silence our harps.

       We shall sit still in the dark in the rustle of leaves, and the tired moon will shed pale rays on your window.

       O traveller, what sleepless spirit has touched you from the heart of the mid-night?

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      I spent my day on the scorching hot dust of the road.

       Now, in the cool of the evening, I knock at the door of the inn.

       It is deserted and in ruins.

       A grim ashath tree spreads its hungry clutching roots through the gaping fissures of the walls. Days have been when wayfarers came here to wash their weary feet. They spread their mats in the courtyard in the dim light of the early moon, and sat and talked of strange lands. They work refreshed in the morning when birds made them glad, and friendly flowers nodded