I Won't Let You Go: Selected Poems

by Rabindranath Tagore

  in the endless sky, like a mother whose sleep’s been murdered,

  whose bed is empty, whose child is dead.

  The more I study the names of new countries

  and their varied accounts, the more my mind

  rushes forward, wanting to touch all; say, by a sea,

  between small blue hills there lies a hamlet where

  fishing-nets lie on the beach, drying in the sun,

  a boat hovers on the waters, a sail stirs,

  a fisherman fishes, and through a steep ravine

  a narrow stream winds its way, twists and turns.

  How I wish I could

  embrace with my arms, press to my heart that nest

  of human habitation, cosily ensconced

  in the lap of hills and resonant with the waves!

  Whatever exists anywhere I wish to make mine,

  melt myself into a river’s current,

  to village after village on either bank

  offer myself as water to quench men’s thirst,

  sing my murmuring song both day and night;

  become a chain of lofty mountains stretching

  from the sea where the sun rises to the sea where it sets,

  rim to rim, a cincture to the earth,

  noble in my mystery, which none may fathom,

  and on my hard stone lap, where the chill wind sharply blows,

  secretly cradle, rear to manhood new

  unknown nations. Deep is my desire

  in country after country to identify

  myself with all men; to be born

  as an Arab child in the desert, fearless and free,

  raised on camel’s milk; to explore

  cold stone mansions, Buddhist monasteries

  on Tibet’s plateau; to drink grape-wine

  as a Persian in a rose-garden; to ride

  horses as an intrepid Tartar; to be polite

  and vigorous as a Japanese; to toil

  with dedication as in the ancient Chinese land;

  to experience existence in all homes.

  Oh, to be a naked barbarian, sturdy, robust, fierce,

  neither to duties nor to prohibitions geared,

  bound by nothing – neither customs, nor scruples, nor doubts,

  nor a sense of mine and thine, nor the fever of thought;

  one whose life-flow always rushes unchecked,

  colliding with what’s in front, bearing clouts

  without a whimper, never looking back –

  stung by conscience or in vain remorse –

  nor regarding the future with false hopes,

  but on the wave-peaks of the here and the now

  dancing and moving on in thrilled delight!

  Yes, that life’s unruly, but I still love it,

  and how often have I wished I could submit

  to that vitality’s storm, hurtling like a light-weight

  boat in full sail!

  The forest’s ferocious tiger

  easily bears his own enormous heft

  by his immense strength. His body, vivid and bright

  like thunder within which fire lurks, beneath

  forests which are like clouds, with a mighty roar

  as deep as thunder springs suddenly upon his prey

  with lightning’s speed. Effortless is that greatness,

  violence-keen that joy, that proud triumph:

  even such things I wish to savour once!

  I would, if I could, drink again and again

  the manifold wines of joy that overflow

  all the goblets that this cosmos holds.

  Beautiful earth, as I have looked upon you,

  how often has my spirit leapt into song

  with huge happiness! How I have craved

  to get a firm grip on your ocean-girdled waist

  and keep it pressed to my breast;

  to spread myself in every direction, as pervasive

  and boundless as the morning sun; to dance

  all day long upon forests, upon mountains,

  on the undulations of trembling leaves; to kiss

  every flower that buds; to embrace

  all the tender densely growing greenswards;

  to oscillate as on a swing of delight

  on every wave; and quietly at night

  with hushed footsteps to come as cosmic sleep,

  stroking the eyes of all your birds and beasts

  with my own fingers, entering every bed,

  nest, home, cave, den that there is, spreading myself

  like a gigantic sari-end upon

  all that exists, cloaking it

  with the gentlest darkness!

  My earth, you are

  so many years old; with me mixed in your clay,

  unwearied in the limitless firmament,

  you have orbited the sun; and for nights and days

  spanning millennia within me your grass has grown,

  flowers in clusters have opened,

  so many trees have shed their leaves, buds, fruits,

  odoriferous pollen! Hence in the present time,

  maybe one day, sitting alone with a drifting mind

  on Padma’s bank, gazing with charmed eyes,

  with all my limbs and awareness I can sense

  how grass-seeds sprout with shivers within your soil,

  how, inside you, streams of vital fluids

  circulate night and day, how flower-buds

  appear with blind ecstatic delight,

  shielded by lovely calyces, how in the morning sun

  grass-blades, climbers, trees, shrubs rejoice,

  with a concealed thrill and almost foolish elation,

  like infants wearied by suckling at mothers’ breasts,

  fully satisfied, smiling at pleasant dreams.

  Likewise some day when post-rains sunrays

  fall on fields of ripened golden crops,

  rows of coconut palms quiver in the breeze,

  shimmer in the sun, there rises within me such

  an immense yearning, as if in remembrance

  of bygone days when my sentience was dispersed

  everywhere – in land, water, leaves,

  the sky’s azure. And the entire world

  seems to send me a hundred inarticulate calls,

  like the familiar hubbub of manifold

  gladsome games played by my perennial

  companions, a happy commingled murmur

  issuing from a vast, varied nursery.

  Take me back

  once more to that refuge, remove that hurt

  of separation that throbs from time to time

  within my mind, when in the evening’s rays

  I look at a big meadow, as cows return

  from far pastures, kicking dust from field-paths,

  smoke curls from tree-encircled hamlets

  up to the evening sky, far off the moon

  appears slowly, slowly like a weary farer,

  and on the deserted sandbank by the river

  I feel so lonely, such an alien,

  like an exile, and with arms outstretched

  I rush out to receive the entire outer world

  within myself: sky, earth, river-nestled

  heaps of sleeping calm white moonlight. But I can’t

  touch anything and just stare at an emptiness

  in utter despondence. Take me back

  to the centre of that wholeness, whence continually

  life germinates in a hundred thousand ways,

  sends out shoots and buds, whence songs burst

  in a million melodies, dances emanate

  in countless gestures, where the mind flows

  in torrents of ideas and emotions, where every hole

  belongs to a flute that plays, and where you stand,

  black mythic cow of plenty, being milked

  from a thousand angles by plants, birds, beasts,

  numberless thirsty creatures, the juice of joy
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  raining in so many ways and all the directions

  echoing to that murmuring music. I wish

  to taste that various, universal bliss

  in one moment, all elements together,

  united with all. And will not your groves

  be even greener, mingled with my gladness?

  Will not a few new trembling rays invade

  the morning sunshine? Surely my ecstasy

  will dye both earth and sky with the heart’s pigments,

  gazing at which, within a poet’s mind

  poems shall rise, lovers’ eyes shall fill

  with emotion’s intoxication, and from bird-beaks

  sudden songs shall spring. O earth,

  all your limbs are dyed with the happiness

  of so many thousands!

  Floods of creatures have again and again

  enveloped you with their lives, gone and returned,

  mixing their hearts’ affection with your humus,

  writing so many scripts, spreading in so many directions

  such yearning eager embraces! With them I shall

  mingle all my love with diligent care,

  dye your sari’s end with vivid colours.

  Yes, I shall

  deck you with my all. And will not

  some enchanted ear on a river-bank

  hear my song in the water’s murmur? Will not

  some earth-dweller rise from sleep, perceive

  my song in the dawn-light? A hundred years hence

  will not my spirit quiver in this lovely forest’s

  layers of leaves? In home after home

  hundreds of men and women will for long

  play their games of domesticity, and will not

  something of myself remain in their loves?

  Tell me, will I not

  descend as laughter on their faces or as lush

  youth on all their limbs? Will I not be

  their sudden pleasure on a spring day or a young

  keen bud of love sprouting in a nook

  of their minds? Could you, motherland,

  abandon me altogether? Could the tough

  earthen cord that has endured for ages

  suddenly be severed? Might I have to leave

  the soft lap that has cradled me a million years?

  Rather, from all sides won’t they pull me to them:

  all these trees, shrubs, mountains, rivers, glens,

  this deep blue sky that belongs to eternity,

  this generous breeze that wafts such vitality,

  light that wakes, the knitted social lives

  within which all creatures live enmeshed?

  Yes, I’ll circle you; I shall dwell among

  your own kinsfolk; as birds, beasts, worms,

  trees, shrubs, creepers you’ll call me again and again,

  draw me to your warm throbbing bosom;

  age after age, life after life you’ll press

  your breasts to my mouth, assuage the million

  hungers of my lives with the dripping ambrosial milk

  of a million delights, emptying yourself

  and making me drink with your deepest tenderness.

  Then shall I, a young man, earth’s grown up son,

  travel the world, traverse continents,

  venture far, far among constellations

  along inaccessible tracks. But as yet

  I’ve not had enough; thirst for your nectar-milk

  still clings to my mouth; your face

  still brings lovely dreams before my eyes;

  nothing of you have I finished yet;

  all is mysterious, and my steady gaze

  hasn’t yet plumbed the depth of its own amazement.

  Like a child I still cling to your bosom,

  my eyes on your face. Mother, hold me, please,

  within the firmest embrace of your arms.

  Make me your own, one who belongs to your breast:

  that secret source from where the fountain rises –

  of your vast vitality and varied delights –

  do take me there. Don’t keep me away.

  [11 November 1893]

  On the Doctrine of Maya

  Joyless country, in tattered decrepitude dressed,

  burdened by your own sagacity, you think

  that God’s deception has been caught red-handed

  by your too-clever discriminating gaze.

  With a wit as sharp as a needle of kush-grass,

  unemployed, you sit at home night and day,

  convinced that this earth, this universe,

  planets and stars in the firmament are fakes.

  Birds and beasts, creatures of many species,

  bereft of fear, have breathed here for ages.

  To them this created world is a mother’s lap,

  but you, old dotard, have faith in nothing! And this

  cosmic concourse, fairground of millions, billions

  of living things is to you child’s play.

  [Simla? November 1893?]

  Play

  Well, maybe it’s play, but one which we must join

  with everyone, in a happy hullabaloo!

  What would be the point of leaving it all and sitting

  silently in a dark corner of the self?

  Know that you are but a child in this vast world,

  in the cradle of infinite time, in the sky’s playground:

  you think you know it all, but you know nothing!

  Pick it up – with faith, humility, love –

  that grand toy – coloured, musical, scented –

  which your mother’s given you. Well, maybe it’s dust!

  So what? Isn’t it dust beyond compare?

  Prematurely senile, don’t mope, sitting alone:

  you won’t be an adult till you join the merry-go-round!

  [Simla? November 1893?]

  On Her Powerlessness

  Where I’ve found myself, there I belong,

  a needy offspring of this indigent earth.

  The burden of pains and pleasures I’ve had since birth

  I’ve decided to accept as my sheer good luck.

  My earthen mother, green and all-enduring,

  I know your hands don’t hold infinite riches.

  You want to feed all hungry mouths, but alas,

  so often you can’t; and ‘What, what can we eat?’ –

  your children cry, their faces pale and withered.

  Mother, I know your hands hold unfinished pleasures:

  whatever you shape and give us breaks into pieces.

  Death, omnivorous, pokes his fingers in every pie

  and all our hopes you can never satisfy,

  but that’s no reason to forsake your warm breast!

  [Simla? November 1893?]

  FROM Chitra (1896)

  Farewell to Heaven

  Now fades the garland of mandars round my neck,

  o great Indra, and the radiant mark is quenched

  on my sullied forehead. My piety’s strength

  wanes. And gods, goddesses, today I must

  say goodbye to heaven. Gladly have I spent

  many millennia in the kingdom of the gods

  as one of the immortals, and had hoped to see

  at this parting-hour a hint of tears

  in heaven’s eyes. But heartless, void of grief,

  indifferent, this happy celestial land

  just looks on. The passing of millennia

  is not a blink to its eyes; not even the hurt

  a branch of the peepul-tree feels, when from its edge

  the driest leaf falls, can be felt by heaven, when

  hundreds of us, like burnt-out refugee stars,

  are dislodged, to descend, in an instant,

  even from the region of the gods down to the earth’s

  unending stream of births and deaths. And should

  such hurt have been felt, should the merest trace
r />   of separation’s shadow have fallen across heaven,

  then would its eternal brilliance have been veiled

  with soft dewy vapours as on earth; Nandan-garden

  would have murmured sighs; Mandakini,

  lapping its banks, would have, in liquid voice,

  sung sad tales; at the day’s end

  evening would have come, walked like a hermitess

  to the horizon, beyond lone fields; still nights

  would have played the chanting crickets’ ascetic chorus

  under the assembled stars; in the hall of the gods

  at times dancing Menaka’s golden anklets

  would have missed a beat; leaning on Urbashi’s breast,

  her golden vina, strings roughly pressed,

  would have at times, as if unawares to her,

  burst into sudden bars of tragic music.

  Lines of idle tears might then have appeared

  on the dry eyes of the gods; by her husband’s side,

  throned on the same seat, Shachi might have suddenly looked

  into Indra’s eyes, as if seeking water for her thirst.

  And the wind might have wafted towards heaven

  sudden gusts of the earth’s long-drawn sighs,

  shaking petals off the Nandan branches.

  Stay laughing, heaven. Gods, keep drinking your nectar.

  Heaven is indeed your very own place of bliss,

  where we are aliens. Earth – she is no heaven,

  but she’s a motherland; that’s why her eyes

  stream with tears, if after a few days

  anyone leaves her even for a few hours.

  The humble, the meek, the most incompetent,

  sinners and sick men – all she would hold tight

  in an eager embrace, fasten to her soft breast,

  such is the pleasure a mother gets from the touch

  of her children’s dusty bodies. So let there flow

  nectar in heaven, and on earth let love,

  for ever mixed with pains and pleasures, stream,

  keeping earth’s heaven-spots evergreen with tears.

  Nymph, may the pain of love never diminish

  the shine of your bright eyes. I bid you goodbye.

  You desire nobody, nor grieve for any.

  Should my love be born in the poorest home on earth,

  by the side of a river, at the edge of a village, in a hut

  half-hidden in the shade of a peepul, she might

  carefully save for me her ambrosial store

  within her breast. When she’s a child,