I Won't Let You Go: Selected Poems

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I Won't Let You Go: Selected Poems Page 25

by Rabindranath Tagore


  day of the monsoon blues?

  My eyes wide open,

  I can only stare at the distance,

  while my soul weeps and wanders

  with the storm-wind’s roar.

  Why do you keep me sitting alone

  by the door?

  [Bolpur-Santiniketan, rainy season, 1909 (Ashadh, 1316). No. 16 of Gitanjali (1910).]

  9.

  Where’s the light? Where, where is the light?

  Kindle it in separation’s blaze!

  A lamp exists, but has no flame –

  was this written in my fate?

  Death, surely, would be better than this state!

  Light the lamp in separation’s blaze!

  Pain, she-messenger, croons:

  ‘Listen, soul, for your sake God wakes,

  in deepest darkness

  calls you to keep love’s tryst,

  tests you with affliction to uphold your nobleness.

  For your sake God wakes!’

  The dome of the heavens has filled with heaps of clouds,

  the rain continues to fall, does not abate.

  In such a night for what

  does my soul awake with a start

  feeling tender yearning’s sudden onslaught?

  The rain continues to fall, does not abate.

  The lightning’s gleam just casts a moment’s brightness,

  only to plunge the eyes in denser darkness.

  Far away – don’t know exactly where –

  a melody in bass notes commences,

  tugging all my soul towards the road’s distance,

  plunging the eyes in even denser darkness.

  Where’s the light? Where, where is the light?

  Kindle it in separation’s blaze!

  The thunder calls. Loudly the tempest bawls.

  If the hour is missed, the tryst will not be kept.

  Well-advanced and touchstone-black is the night.

  Light love’s lamp with your soul, let it blaze!

  [Bolpur-Santiniketan? Rainy season, 1909 (Ashadh 1316). No. 17 of Gitanjali (1910).]

  10.

  It is a stormy night

  and you are coming to meet me,

  o my friend, my soul-mate!

  The sky weeps like

  someone in despair,

  my eyes know no sleep.

  Beloved, I throw open my door

  and look out again and again.

  O my friend, my soul-mate!

  Outside I can see

  nothing at all, nothing!

  I wonder what kind of

  track you might be treading.

  Along the bank of

  what distant river,

  skirting the edge of

  what dense-knit forest,

  in what depth of darkness

  are you coming across,

  o my friend, my soul-mate!

  [Houseboat on the Padma, July-August 1909 (Srabon 1316). No. 20 of Gitanjali (1910).]

  11.

  O master singer, how marvellously you sing!

  All I can do is listen to you, entranced.

  Melody’s light overspreads the earth’s expanse,

  gales of melody scale the sky’s ramparts;

  bursting rocks, melody’s Ganga flows

  torrential in its speed.

  In my heart of hearts I wish to sing like you,

  but such rich notes elude my vocal cords.

  I want to say something, but falter in my speech.

  I am trumped! My inmost being weeps.

  What a trap this is, where I find myself ensnared,

  with your web of melodies woven all around me!

  [Bolpur-Santiniketan, night of 26 August 1909. No. 22 of Gitanjali (1910).]

  12.

  No! It won’t do to evade me like this!

  Steal secretly into my heart’s seat:

  nobody will know it, or talk about it!

  No matter where I roam, abroad or at home,

  your game of hide-and-seek is patent to me.

  Say now

  you won’t trick me,

  will let yourself be caught

  in an obscure corner of my mind’s retreat!

  It won’t do to evade me like this!

  Yes, yes, my heart is hard, I know,

  not soft enough for your feet!

  Yet should your breeze blow upon it, friend,

  wouldn’t it thaw a bit?

  I may lack self-discipline’s grit,

  but should your tender mercy’s droplets fall,

  wouldn’t blossoms unfold in an instant,

  fruits ripen, too, in a sudden burst of heat?

  It won’t do to evade me like this!

  [Bolpur-Santiniketan, night of 27 August 1909. No. 23 of Gitanjali (1910).]

  13.

  If I don’t see you, Lord, in this life,

  let me remember that fact –

  that I never had the chance to meet and get to know you.

  Let me not forget it. Let it hurt my sleep and dreams.

  I may spend days in this world’s market-place,

  my two hands may get piled with stupendous riches.

  Yet let me remember that I haven’t gained anything at all.

  Let me not forget it. Let it hurt my sleep and dreams.

  If I sit down idly on the road,

  carefully spread my bed-roll in the dust,

  let me remember all my paths are still untrod.

  Let me not forget it. Let it hurt my sleep and dreams.

  No matter how loudly peals of laughter ring

  or how long the flute plays in my house,

  no matter how lavishly I decorate all the rooms,

  let me remember that I haven’t had you as my guest.

  Let me not forget it. Let it hurt my sleep and dreams.

  [Bolpur-Santiniketan, 28 August 1909. No. 24 of Gitanjali (1910).]

  14.

  My eyes keep vigil for you, Lord,

  but I don’t see you.

  I scan the road:

  and I like that too!

  Sitting in the dust by the gate,

  my beggar’s heart

  solicits your mercy, alas!

  Your pity I don’t get,

  I just ask for it:

  and I like that too!

  Today in this world

  so many, so busy, so happy,

  have rushed past me and sped ahead of me.

  I can’t find a companion,

  it’s you I want:

  and I like that too!

  Around me the green

  yearning honeyed earth

  draws from me such tears of tenderness!

  No sign of you, none!

  O yes, it hurts:

  but I like that too!

  [Bolpur-Santiniketan, night of 30 August 1909. No. 28 of Gitanjali (1910).]

  15.

  My heart’s ravisher,

  this is your love indeed:

  this light’s golden dance

  upon the leaves!

  These clouds, sweetly sluggish,

  drifting in the heavens,

  this breeze dripping manna

  on my skin:

  my heart’s ravisher,

  these are your love indeed!

  Streams of morning light

  have flooded my eyes.

  Your words of love

  have entered my inmost being.

  I’ve seen your face bend down

  and fix its gaze on my face.

  Today my heart has touched

  your very feet.

  [Bolpur-Santiniketan, 1 September 1909. No. 30 of Gitanjali (1910).]

  16.

  For how many aeons

  have you been coming towards me –

  to be united with me!

  Where possibly could your suns and moons

  keep you hidden!

  In the mornings and evenings

  of how many ages

  have your footsteps reverbera
ted!

  And a secret messenger

  has etched your call on my breast!

  O wayfarer,

  today in all my being

  I think I sense

  joy’s fitful shivers.

  It is as if the hour had finally come,

  and all I had to do was at last done.

  O great king, how the wind does blow

  with your perfume on itself!

  [Bolpur-Santiniketan, 1 September 1909. No. 34 of Gitanjali (1910).]

  17.

  The song I came to sing here stays unsung.

  It’s still the scales, just the wish carrying me along.

  I haven’t yet hit the notes. I haven’t yet fixed the words.

  Within me there’s just a song’s disquiet.

  The bud’s still closed. Just a breath of air has stirred.

  I haven’t yet seen his face. I haven’t yet heard his speech.

  From time to time I just hear his pacing feet.

  He comes and goes just without my door.

  The whole day’s gone in just preparing a seat.

  My room’s unlit. How can I ask him in?

  I hope to have him, for I haven’t had him yet.

  [Calcutta, 12 September 1909. No. 39 of Gitanjali (1910).]

  18.

  That is why

  you take such pleasure in me,

  why you have come down!

  Lord of the three worlds,

  were it not for me,

  your love would have been naught!

  Here with me

  you have framed a fairground’s play;

  inside my heart the emotions are swaying;

  within my life in diverse manifestations

  your will is in wave motion.

  That is why,

  though you are a king of kings,

  you still seek my heart

  and wander in such captivating costumes,

  always alert.

  That is why

  it is your love that pours

  in the love of one who adores:

  it is where two are united

  that your likeness

  is fully manifest.

  [Janipur, River Gorai, 12 July 1910. No. 121 of Gitanjali (1910).]

  19.

  All life’s acts of worship

  not completed –

  even those, I know,

  aren’t utterly lost, forfeited.

  The flower that fell to earth

  before opening its eye,

  the river that lost its way

  in desert sands –

  even those, I know,

  aren’t utterly lost, forfeited.

  Jobs undone that

  trail behind me still –

  I don’t believe

  they’ll only add up to nil.

  I hear them ring

  on your own lute-strings,

  which I haven’t reached

  or plucked with my fingers yet.

  I just don’t believe

  they’re totally trashed, defeated.

  [Bolpur-Santiniketan, 8 August 1910. No. 147 of Gitanjali (1910).]

  20.

  She won’t take no for an answer.

  I look away. She says, ‘No, no, no!’

  I tell her, ‘It’s day. The lamp is pale.’

  Her eyes on my face, she says, ‘No, no, no!’

  Wild and flustered in the blustering wind,

  Phalgun yawls in the flower-garden.

  I tell her, ‘Well then, time for me to go.’

  She stands at the door, says, ‘No, no, no!’

  [Spring 1909? In the play Prayashchitta (1909).]

  21.

  The dawn in which you called me

  is known to none.

  That my mind weeps to itself

  is allowed by none.

  Restless, I stalk

  and stare at others’ faces.

  Traction such as yours

  is matched by none.

  The fifth note quakes,

  the shuttered room vibrates.

  But, without, my door

  is knocked by none.

  Whose unquiet in the sky

  and news in the wind that flies?

  Along this path that secret

  is borne by none.

  [Shilaidaha? Rainy season 1911? In the play Achalayatan, which was first published in the magazine Prabasi in September–October 1911 (Ashwin 1318), then in book form in 1912.]

  22.

  When my pain escorts me to your door,

  come, open the door yourself and call her in.

  Starved of your arms, all else has she forsworn

  and runs to meet you along a path of thorns.

  When pain plucks my strings, my notes vibrate.

  That song pulls you so, you gravitate.

  It flounders down like a bird in a night of storm.

  Come you then. Come out into the darkness.

  [Calcutta, 28 February 1914. In Gitimalya (1914).]

  23.

  That fire of music you ignited in me –

  how its flames have reached out everywhere!

  All around me on branches of dead trees

  tarum tarum it dances in rhythmic beats

  and stretches its hands skyward to someone above.

  The stars are stunned. They look on in the darkness.

  And from somewhere a mad wind charges at us.

  See: in the midnight’s bosom this immaculate

  lotus unfolding its petals – so aureate –

  this fire –

  who knows its power?

  [Santiniketan, 7 April 1914. In Gitimalya (1914).]

  24.

  Not just your words,

  o my friend, my beloved,

  please give my spirit

  your touch as well at times!

  My long day’s thirst,

  long journey’s weariness

  I can’t figure out

  how to slake or alleviate:

  assure me, please, that this darkness

  is filled with you!

  My heart doesn’t just want to take,

  it also longs to give!

  It toils and trudges,

  carrying all it’s hoarded.

  Extend your hand

  and place it, please, in mine –

  let me hold it, let me fill it,

  let me keep it with me

  to charge my lonely wayfaring

  with beauty!

  [Santiniketan, 4 September 1914. In Gitali (1914).]

  25.

  There’s no end to it,

  so who’s to say the last word?

  What came as a blow

  will later glow as a fire.

  When clouds have had their show,

  rain will pour.

  When snow has piled,

  it’ll melt into a river.

  What comes to an end

  ends only to the eyes,

  walks through the door of darkness

  into light.

  Bursting the heart of the old,

  the new will of itself unfold.

  When life’s flowering’s over,

  death’s fruits will appear.

  [Surul, 14 September 1914. In Gitali (1914).]

  26.

  I shall not beguile you with my beauty,

  I shall beguile you with my love.

  I shall not open the door with my hand,

  but with my song I shall make it come open.

  I shall not load you with the weight of jewels,

  nor cover you with chains of flowers.

  My tenderness will be the garland

  which I shall swing from your throat.

  No one will know what typhoon it is

  that makes waves heave within you.

  Like a moon by invisible pull

  I shall raise the tide.

  [Date of composition unknown. Though it is stated in some sources that this song was first published as part of the pl
ay Raja, it is in fact not in the first edition of the play (1911). It was first added to Raja in a special edition of various works of Tagore published from Allahabad, Kavyagrantha, vol. 9, 1916, and was thereafter included in the play Arupratan (1920) and the second official edition of Raja (1921) which became the standard text of the play.]

  27.

  I couldn’t keep them in the golden cage –

  my days, my many-coloured days.

  They couldn’t take it – the bondage of laughter and tears –

  my days, my many-coloured days.

  The language of my heart’s very own songs

  they might pick up: even such was my hope.

  But they flew away before learning all the words –

  my days, my many-coloured days.

  Now I dream that expecting someone there,

  they hop around that broken cage of mine –

  my days, my many-coloured days.

  So much feeling – could it have been in vain?

  Were they all made of shadows – those birds?

  Did they take nothing at all with them to the skies –

  my days, my many-coloured days?

  [Santiniketan, 1918/1919? First published with notation in Gitibithika in April–May 1919 (Baishakh 1326).]

 

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