I Won't Let You Go: Selected Poems

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I Won't Let You Go: Selected Poems Page 12

by Rabindranath Tagore


  All those others who came close and moved off

  in the darkness – I don’t know if they exist or not.

  [En route to Shahjadpur by boat? 3 April 1896]

  Putu

  It was a long-drawn Chaitra noon;

  the earth was thirsty, burnt by the day.

  Suddenly I heard someone calling

  somewhere outside, ‘Puturani, come!’

  The river-bank’s deserted in the midday,

  so the voice of affection made me curious.

  Closing my book, I slowly got up,

  opened the door a little and looked outside.

  A huge buffalo, covered in mud,

  tender-eyed, was standing on the bank.

  A young man was in the water, calling her

  to give her a bath, ‘Puturani, come!’

  When I saw the young man and his Puturani,

  gentle tears mingled with my smiles.

  [En route to Shahjadpur by boat? 4 April 1896]

  The Companion

  And I remember yet another day.

  One afternoon I saw a gypsy girl

  sitting on the green grass at a meadow’s edge,

  just by herself, doing her hair in a plait.

  Her pet puppy came behind her, took

  the movement of the hair to be some sport,

  and jumping high and barking loudly, began

  to bite the moving plait again and again.

  The girl shook her neck and told him off,

  which only increased the puppy’s playful mood.

  She gave him a little rap with her forefinger;

  he took it for more play, got more excited.

  Laughing then, she got up, drew him to her breast

  and smothered him with cuddles.

  [En route to Shahjadpur by boat? 4 April 1896]

  A Scene of Affection

  He would be about twenty, with a wasted body

  reduced to skin and bones through many years’ illness.

  Looking at his vacant face – not a smile on it –

  you would think he was wholly incapable

  of sucking out the least pleasure from this world

  even with all his body and mind and soul.

  His mother carries him like a child –

  his long thin withered barely throbbing body –

  and without hope, yet patient, with a sad face, without words,

  daily she brings him by the side of the road.

  Trains come and go; people rush; just in case

  the commotion revives the moribund’s interest

  in the world, and he looks at it a little –

  with such meagre hope does his mother bring him.

  [En route to Shahjadpur by boat? 5 April 1896]

  Against Meditative Knowledge

  Those who wish to sit, shut their eyes,

  and meditate to know if the world’s true or lies,

  may do so. It’s their choice. But I meanwhile

  with hungry eyes that can’t be satisfied

  shall take a look at the world in broad daylight.

  [Shahjadpur? 8 April 1896]

  True Meditation

  The more I love you and see you in your greatness,

  the more, dearest, I see you in true light.

  The more I lower you, the less I seem to know you,

  sometimes losing you, sometimes keeping you in sight.

  This spring day, with my mind enlightened,

  I see a vision I’ve never seen before:

  this world’s vanished; there’s nothing at all;

  before me only a vast ocean unfolds.

  There’s neither day nor night, no minutes or hours;

  the cataclysmic waters are controlled;

  in the midst of it all, with all your petals unfurled,

  you hover, sole lotus, and stay afloat.

  The king of the cosmos sits for ever, impassioned,

  and beholds in you his own self’s reflection.

  [Shahjadpur? 9 April 1896]

  Drought

  In olden days, I’ve heard, gods in love

  with mortal women used to descend from heaven.

  Those days are gone. It’s Baishakh, the dry season,

  a day of burnt out fields and shrunken streams.

  A peasant’s daughter, piteously suppliant,

  begs again and again, ‘Come, rain, come!’

  Her eyes grieving, restless, and expectant,

  from time to time she casts a look at the sky.

  But no rain falls. The wind, deaf to her cries,

  rushes past, dispersing all the clouds,

  and the sun has licked all moisture from the sky

  with its tongue of fire. Alas, these degenerate days

  the gods are senile. And women can only appeal

  to mortal men.

  [Shahjadpur? 13 April 1896]

  Hope Against Hope

  ‘Mother! Mother!’ I call to you in terror

  in order that my wretched cries might make you

  behave like a mother.

  Perchance you will, as tigresses are known to do,

  abjure all violence and lick this human child.

  Well might you hide your claws and press to my mouth

  your swollen teats, allow me to doze and rest,

  nestled against your striped-as-a-picture breast.

  Such is my hope! Ah, greater than great,

  you are above, showing your billions of stars,

  your moons, planets! Should you suddenly frown

  hideously, and lift your thunder-fist,

  where would I be, so puny, such a weakling?

  So, she-devil, let me decoy you to be a mother!

  [Shahjadpur? 13 April 1896]

  FROM Kanika (1899)

  Give Us Deeds, Not Words

  Said the wasp to the bee, ‘This is such a tiny hive!

  and you are so proud of such a small achievement!’

  ‘Why, then, brother,’ was the bee’s reply,

  ‘let’s see you make a smaller hive for a change!’

  Relationship of Convenience

  Said the beggar’s bowl to the rich man’s money-bag,

  ‘We’re related by marriage; let’s not forget that.’

  The bag said, ‘Should what I have be transferred to you,

  all relationship you would forget too.’

  Kinship Analysed

  Said the paraffin lantern to the earthen lamp,

  ‘Call me brother, and I shall have you flanned.’

  Up rose the moon in the sky soon thereafter.

  Quickly the lantern said, ‘Hallo, Big Brother!’

  Too Good

  Good-Enough said to Even-Better,

  ‘In which heaven do you show your lustre?’

  ‘Alas,’ cried Even-Better, ‘I live in the impotent

  jealousy of the insolent and incompetent.’

  Positive Proof

  Thunder says, ‘As long as I’m far away,

  they refer to my roar as the rumble of clouds,

  and my brilliance is attributed to lightning,

  but when I fall on heads, they say: thunder indeed!’

  FROM Katha (1900)

  The Repayment

  (Adapted from a Buddhist story)

  ‘Theft from the royal treasury! Catch the thief!

  Or else, Police Chief, you’ll come to grief—

  there won’t be a head on your body!’ Terrified

  of royal wrath, policemen scoured streets

  and houses in search of the thief. Outside the city

  in a ruined temple lay Bajrasen,

  a foreigner there, a merchant from Taxila,

  who had come to Benares to sell horses,

  and having been robbed of all, made destitute,

  was sadly returning to his native land.

  On him they pounced, arresting him as the thief,

  binding his hands and feet in iron chains,

  dra
gging him to prison.

  At that very instant

  Shyama, queen of the city beauties, sat

  at her window in a mood of indolent fun,

  spending her time watching the flow of the street,

  the dreamlike procession of people. Suddenly

  she shivered and cried, ‘Alas! Who’s this?

  So tall, handsomer than great Indra himself,

  being dragged to prison like a common thief

  in harsh chains! Quick, my friend!

  Go to the Police Chief, mention my name

  and say I would speak to him. Could he come

  just once with the prisoner to my humble home? –

  It would be a favour.’ Such was the attraction

  of Shyama’s name that the Police Chief, impatient,

  thrilled to be invited, quickly came,

  behind him, in chains, Bajrasen, head bowed,

  cheeks shame-red. Said the Chief with a smile,

  ‘Untimely comes such an unsolicited favour

  toward this undeserving person. I’m on my way

  to do the king’s business. So, my Lovely, permit me.’

  Suddenly Bajrasen lifted his head and said,

  ‘Beauty, what sport, what perverse humour is this

  that makes you call me from the street into your house

  to humiliate this innocent foreigner’s hurt

  of humiliation?’ But Shyama said, ‘Alas,

  foreign traveller, this is no sport at all!

  All the jewels I carry on my person

  I could give up to take your chains on myself,

  and this insult to you, believe me, insults

  me to my inmost core.’ As she said so,

  her eyes, their lashes wet, seemed to want

  to wipe off all the insult from the limbs

  of the foreigner. And she begged the Chief,

  ‘Take all I have and in return set free

  the prisoner.’ But the Chief replied,

  ‘Beauty, it’s a request I may not grant.

  To satisfy you there’s beyond my power.

  The royal treasury’s robbed, and royal wrath

  won’t be appeased till blood-price is paid.’

  Holding the policeman’s hands, poor Shyama pleaded

  pathetically, ‘Keep the prisoner alive

  just for two days – this is my humble plea.’

  ‘All right, then, I’ll do just that,’ said he.

  At the end of the second night, a lamp in her hand,

  the woman opened the prison doors and entered

  the cell where Bajrasen lay in iron chains,

  waiting for death’s dawn, silently repeating

  to himself his God’s name. At her eyes’ signal

  a guard came quickly, freed him from his chains.

  The prisoner, his eyes surprise-whelmed,

  gazed at that fair face, soft, open as a lotus,

  amazingly lovely, and in a choked voice said,

  ‘After the horrors of a grotesque nightmare-night

  who are you, appearing in my prison-cell

  like the white dawn, the morning star in your hand,

  life to the dying, liberation incarnate,

  merciful Lakshmi in this merciless city!’

  ‘Me merciful!’ The woman laughed so loudly

  that the grim prison woke again with shudders

  of renewed terror. She laughed and laughed

  till her bizarre lunatic laughter burst

  into a hundred mournful tear-streams, and she said,

  ‘Many are the stones that pave the city’s streets,

  but none as hard as Shyama, who’s hard indeed!’

  So saying, she firmly grasped his hand

  and took Bajrasen outside the prison gates.

  Day was breaking then on Baruna’s banks

  above the east woods. A boat was ghat-tied.

  ‘Come, foreigner, come,’ said the belle,

  standing on the boat, ‘listen, my love,

  only remember what I’m saying now –

  that I’m floating with you on the same stream,

  bursting all bonds, o lord of my life and death,

  my heart’s sovereign!’ She untied the boat.

  On either side in the woodlands the birds

  merrily sang their festive songs. Uplifting

  his lady-love’s face with both hands, filling his breast,

  Bajrasen begged, ‘Love, tell me, please,

  with what riches you have set me free.

  Foreign woman, let me know in full

  how big a debt this poor miserable man

  owes to you.’ Tightening her embrace,

  the beauty said, ‘We won’t talk of that now.’

  A brisk breeze and a fierce current made

  the boat sail away. Above, a blazing sun

  ascended to the zenith. Village wives

  went home in wet drapery after their bathes,

  carrying bell-metal pitchers of Ganga-water.

  The morning market closed; the hubbub stopped

  on either side of the river; village paths

  emptied. Below a banyan was a stone ghat;

  to it the boat was tied so bath and lunch

  could be had. On the drowsy banyan branches

  shade-immersed birds’ nests were songless.

  Only the indolent insects buzzed and buzzed.

  When the noon wind, stealer of ripe-corn-odours,

  blew off Shyama’s drapery from her head,

  suddenly then, tormented, oppressed

  by the fullness of his passion, voice near-muffled,

  Bajrasen whispered thus in her ears,

  ‘In eternal chains you’ve bound me, freeing me from

  transient chains. But you must inform me

  how such a feat, so difficult, was achieved.

  Love, if I but knew what you did for me,

  with my life, I vow, I would repay you.’

  Drawing the end of her drapery over her face,

  the beauty said, ‘Let’s not talk of that yet.’

  Far away, folding its golden sails,

  daylight’s boat went quietly to the ghat

  of the sunset-mountain, and by a grove on the bank

  Shyama’s boat was moored in the evening breeze.

  The moon – fourth day of waxing – had nearly set;

  a faint light glimmered in long lines upon

  the calm unruffled waters; the darkness massed

  at tree-bases vibrated with crickets

  like vina-strings. Blowing off the lamp,

  below the boat’s window in the southern breeze

  Shyama sat, her face deep-sigh-tense,

  and leaned on the young man’s shoulder. Her tresses

  unbound, fragrant, fell without restraint,

  covering the foreigner’s breast with soft cascades

  of darkness, like a net of the deepest sleep.

  ‘Dearest,’ murmured Shyama in whispered tones,

  ‘what I did for you was hard enough,

  hard indeed, but even harder it is

  to tell you about it now. I must be brief.

  Listen to it once and then wipe the story

  off your mind. –

  A young teenager,

  his name Uttiya, was nearly driven mad

  by his hopeless passion for me. At my request

  he pleaded guilty to the charge held against you

  and gave his own life. And this is my pride –

  that the greatest sin of my life I have committed

  for your sake, o most-excellent of all!’

  The slim moon set. The speechless woodland,

  the sleep of hundreds of birds upon its head,

  stood still. Slowly, ever so slowly

  the lover’s arms around the lady’s waist

  slackened, and a harsh distance settled

  silently between the two. Bajrasen

  stared before
him, mute, stiff, as rigid

  as a stone image, and her head on his feet,

  Shyama, released from the embrace, collapsed

  like a torn climber. The massed riparian darkness

  slowly thickened on the ink-black river-waters.

  Suddenly, clasping the young man’s knees with force

  within her arms, the tormented woman cried

  in a dry voice, free from tears, ‘Liege, forgive!

  May that scourge, the punishment for my sin,

  be that fiercer at the Creator’s hand,

  but may you forgive what I have done for your sake!’

  Looking at her, but moving his legs away,

  Bajrasen burst out, ‘Why? What need had you

  to save this life of mine? Now until death

  bought at your sin-price, a sharer in a great sin,

  this life’s a disgrace, thanks to you, shameful woman!

  Fie on my breath that stands indebted to you!

  Fie on my eyes that blink in each moment that passes!’

  So saying, he rose with assertive force,

  left the boat, went ashore, wandered aimlessly

  in the sylvan darkness. There his feet

  trampled the dry leaves, each step startling the forest.

  In the stuffy airless underwood, thickly packed

  with strong vegetal odours, trunks of trees

  raised their twisted branches everywhere,

  assuming so many grotesque, frightening shapes

  in the darkness. All exits were blocked.

  The creeper-manacled forest spread its hands

  like mute forbiddings. Utterly exhausted,

  the wanderer slumped to the ground. Like a ghost

  someone stood behind him. She had come

  on his heels in the darkness a long way,

  following him without words, with bleeding feet.

  Clenching both his fists, the wanderer shrieked,

  ‘Won’t you leave me yet?’ At that the woman

 

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