Complete Works. Rabindranath Tagore

when I laugh at myself.

      The weak can be terrible

       because they try furiously to appear strong.

      The wind of heaven blows,

       The anchor desperately clutches the mud,

       and my boat is beating its breast against the chain.

      The spirit of death is one,

       the spirit of life is many.

      When God is dead religion becomes one.

      The blue of the sky longs for the earth's green,

       the wind between them sighs, "Alas."

      Day's pain muffled by its own glare,

       burns among stars in the night.

      The stars crowd round the virgin night

       in silent awe at her loneliness

       that can never be touched.

      The cloud gives all its gold

       to the departing sun

       and greets the rising moon

       with only a pale smile.

      He who does good comes to the temple gate,

       he who loves reaches the shrine.

      Flower, have pity for the worm,

       it is not a bee,

       its love is a blunder and a burden.

      With the ruins of terror's triumph

       children build their doll's house.

      The lamp waits through the long day of neglect

       for the flame's kiss in the night.

      Feathers in the dust lying lazily content

       have forgotten their sky.

      The flowers which is single

       need not envy the thorns

       that are numerous.

      The world suffers most from the disinterested tyranny

       of its well-wisher.

      We gain freedom when we have paid the full price

       for our right to live.

      Your careless gifts of a moment,

       like the meteors of an autumn night,

       catch fire in the depth of my being.

      The faith waiting in the heart of a seed

       promises a miracle of life

       which it cannot prove at once.

      Spring hesitates at winter's door,

       but the mango blossom rashly runs out to him

       before her time and meets her doom.

      The world is the ever-changing foam

       that floats on the surface of a sea of silence.

      The two separated shores mingle their voices

       in a song of unfathomed tears.

      As a river in the sea,

       work finds its fulfillment

       in the depth of leisure.

      I lingered on my way till thy cherry tree lost its blossom,

       but the azalea brings to me, my love, thy forgiveness.

      Thy shy little pomegranate bud,

       blushing to-day behind her veil,

       will burst into a passionate flower

       to-morrow when I am away.

      The clumsiness of power spoils the key,

       and uses the pickaxe.

      Birth is from the mystery of night

       into the greater mystery of day.

      These paper boats of mine are meant to dance

       on the ripples of hours,

       and not to reach any destination.

      Migratory songs wing from my heart

       and seek their nests in your voice of love.

      The sea of danger, doubt and denial

       around man's little island of certainty

       challenges him to dare the unknown.

      Love punishes when it forgives,

       and injured beauty by its awful silence.

      You live alone and unrecompensed

       because they are afraid of your great worth.

      The same sun is newly born in new lands

       in a ring of endless dawns.

      God's world is ever renewed by death,

       a Titan's ever crushed by its own existence.

      The glow-worm while exploring the dust

       never knows that stars are in the sky.

      The tree is of to-day, the flower is old,

       it brings with it the message

       of the immemorial seed.

      Each rose that comes brings me greetings

       from the Rose of an eternal spring.

      God honours me when I work,

       He loves me when I sing.

      My love of to-day finds no home

       in the nest deserted by yesterday's love.

      The fire of pain traces for my soul

       a luminous path across her sorrow.

      The grass survives the hill

       through its resurrections from countless deaths.

      Thou hast vanished from my reach

       leaving an impalpable touch in the blue of the sky,

       an invisible image in the wind moving

       among the shadows.

      In pity for the desolate branch

       spring leaves to it a kiss that fluttered in a lonely leaf.

      The shy shadow in the garden

       loves the sun in silence,

       Flowers guess the secret, and smile,

       while the leaves whisper.

      I leave no trace of wings in the air,

       but I am glad I have had my flight.

      The fireflies, twinkling among leaves,

       make the stars wonder.

      The mountain remains unmoved

       at its seeming defeat by the mist.

      While the rose said to the sun,

       "I shall ever remember thee,"

       her petals fell to the dust.

      Hills are the earth's gesture of despair

       for the unreachable.

      Though the thorn in thy flower pricked me,

       O Beauty,

       I am grateful.

      The world knows that the few

       are more than the many.

      Let not my love be a burden on you, my friend,

       know that it pays itself.

      Dawn plays her lute before the gate of darkness,

       and is content to vanish when the sun comes out.

      Beauty is truth's smile

       when she beholds