Stray Birds by Rabindranath Tagore (year 7 reading list .txt) π
homesick children, mother, come back to thee from the heaven."
161
The cobweb pretends to catch dew-drops and catches flies.
162
Love! when you come with the burning lamp of pain in your hand, I can see your face and know you as bliss.
163
"The learned say that your lights will one day be no more." said the firefly to the stars.
The stars made no answer.
164
In the dusk of the evening the bird of some early dawn comes to the nest of my silence.
165
Thoughts pass in my mind like flocks of ducks in the sky.
I hear the voice of their wings.
166
The canal loves to think that rivers exist solely to supply it with water.
167
The world has kissed my soul with its pain, asking for its return in songs.
168
That which oppresses me, is it my soul trying to come out in the open, or the soul of the world knocking at my heart for its entrance?
169
Thoug
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Title: Stray Birds
Author: Rabindranath Tagore
Posting Date: March 27, 2010 [EBook #6524]
Release Date: September, 2004
First Posted: December 25, 2002
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRAY BIRDS ***
Produced by Chetan K. Jain and Eric Eldred
[translated from Bengali to English by the author]
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916
[Frontispiece in color by Willy PogΓ‘ny]
To
T. HARA
of
Yokohama
[Birds, falling leaves outside window]
1
STRAY birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away.
And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.
2
O TROUPE of little vagrants of the world, leave your footprints in my words.
3
THE world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover.
It becomes small as one song, as one kiss of the eternal.
4
IT is the tears of the earth that keep her smiles in bloom.
5
THE mighty desert is burning for the love of a blade of grass who shakes her head and laughs and flies away.
6
IF you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.
7
THE sands in your way beg for your song and your movement, dancing water. Will you carry the burden of their lameness?
8
HER wistful face haunts my dreams like the rain at night.
9
ONCE we dreamt that we were strangers.
We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.
10
SORROW is hushed into peace in my heart like the evening among the silent trees.
11
SOME unseen fingers, like idle breeze, are playing upon my heart the music of the ripples.
12
"WHAT language is thine, O sea?"
"The language of eternal question."
"What language is thy answer, O sky?
"The language of eternal silence."
13
LISTEN, my heart, to the whispers of the world with which it makes love to you.
14
THE mystery of creation is like the darkness of night--it is great. Delusions of knowledge are like the fog of the morning.
15
DO not seat your love upon a precipice because it is high.
16
I SIT at my window this morning where the world like a passer-by stops for a moment, nods to me and goes.
17
THESE little thoughts are the rustle of leaves; they have their whisper of joy in my mind.
18
WHAT you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow.
19
MY wishes are fools, they shout across thy songs, my Master.
Let me but listen.
20
I CANNOT choose the best.
The best chooses me.
21
THEY throw their shadows before them who carry their lantern on their back.
22
THAT I exist is a perpetual surprise which is life.
23
"WE, the rustling leaves, have a voice that answers the storms, but who are you so silent?"
"I am a mere flower."
24
REST belongs to the work as the eyelids to the eyes.
25
MAN is a born child, his power is the power of growth.
26
GOD expects answers for the flowers he sends us, not for the sun and the earth.
27
THE light that plays, like a naked child, among the green leaves happily knows not that man can lie.
28
O BEAUTY, find thyself in love, not in the flattery of thy mirror.
29
MY heart beats her waves at the shore of the world and writes upon it her signature in tears with the words, "I love thee."
30
"MOON, for what do you wait?"
"To salute the sun for whom I must make way."
31
THE trees come up to my window like the yearning voice of the dumb earth.
32
HIS own mornings are new surprises to God.
33
LIFE finds its wealth by the claims of the world, and its worth by the claims of love.
34
THE dry river-bed finds no thanks for its past.
35
THE bird wishes it were a cloud. The cloud wishes it were a bird.
36
THE waterfall sings, "I find my song, when I find my freedom."
37
I CANNOT tell why this heart languishes in silence.
It is for small needs it never asks, or knows or remembers.
38
WOMAN, when you move about in your household service your limbs sing like a hill stream among its pebbles.
39
THE sun goes to cross the Western sea, leaving its last salutation to the East.
40
DO not blame your food because you have no appetite.
41
THE trees, like the longings of the earth, stand a-tiptoe to peep at the heaven.
42
YOU smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.
43THE fish in the water is silent, the animal on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing,
But Man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.
44THE world rushes on over the strings of the lingering heart making the music of sadness.
45HE has made his weapons his gods. When his weapons win he is defeated himself.
46GOD finds himself by creating.
47SHADOW, with her veil drawn, follows Light in secret meekness, with her silent steps of love.
48THE stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies.
49I THANK thee that I am none of the wheels of power but I am one with the living creatures that are crushed by it.
50THE mind, sharp but not broad, sticks at every point but does not move.
51YOUR idol is shattered in the dust to prove that God's dust is greater than your idol.
52MAN does not reveal himself in his history, he struggles up through it.
53WHILE the glass lamp rebukes the earthen for calling it cousin, the moon rises, and the glass lamp, with a bland smile, calls her, "My dear, dear sister."
54LIKE the meeting of the seagulls and the waves we meet and come near. The seagulls fly off, the waves roll away and we depart.
55MY day is done, and I am like a boat drawn on the beach, listening to the dance-music of the tide in the evening.
56LIFE is given to us, we earn it by giving it.
57WE come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.
58THE sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of its tail.
59NEVER be afraid of the moments--thus sings the voice of the everlasting.
60THE hurricane seeks the shortest road by the no-road, and suddenly ends its search in the Nowhere.
61TAKE my wine in my own cup, friend.
It loses its wreath of foam when poured into that of others.
62THE Perfect decks itself in beauty for the love of the Imperfect.
63GOD says to man, "I heal you therefore I hurt, love you therefore punish."
64THANK the flame for its light, but do not forget the lampholder standing in the shade with constancy of patience.
65TINY grass, your steps are small, but you possess the earth under your tread.
66THE infant flower opens its bud and cries, "Dear World, please do not fade."
67GOD grows weary of great kingdoms, but never of little flowers.
68WRONG cannot afford defeat but Right can.
69"I GIVE my whole water in joy," sings the waterfall, "though little of it is enough for the thirsty."
70WHERE is the fountain that throws up these flowers in a ceaseless outbreak of ecstasy?
71THE woodcutter's axe begged for its handle from the tree.
The tree gave it.
72IN my solitude of heart I feel the sigh of this widowed evening veiled with mist and rain.
73CHASTITY is a wealth that comes from abundance of love.
74THE mist, like love, plays upon the heart of the hills and brings out surprises of beauty.
75WE read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.
76THE poet wind is out over the sea and the forest to seek his own voice.
77EVERY child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.
78THE grass seeks her crowd in the earth.
The tree seeks his solitude of the sky.
79MAN barricades against himself.
80YOUR voice, my friend, wanders in my heart, like the muffled sound of the sea among these listening pines.
81WHAT is this unseen flame of darkness whose sparks are the stars?
82LET life be beautiful like summer flowers and death like autumn leaves.
83HE who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gate open.
84IN death the many becomes one; in life the one becomes many.
Religion will be one when God is dead.
85THE artist is the lover of Nature, therefore he is her slave and her master.
86"HOW far are you from me, O Fruit?"
"I am hidden in your heart, O Flower."
87THIS longing is for the one who is felt in the dark, but not seen in the day.
88"YOU are the big drop of dew under the lotus leaf, I am the smaller one on its upper side," said the dewdrop to the lake.
89THE scabbard is content to be dull when it protects the keenness of the sword.
90IN darkness the One appears as uniform; in the light the One appears as manifold.
91THE great earth makes herself hospitable with the help of the grass.
92THE birth and death of the leaves are the rapid whirls of the eddy whose wider circles move slowly among stars.
93POWER said to the world, "You are mine.
The world kept it prisoner on her throne.
Love said to the world, "I am thine."
The world gave it the freedom of her house.
94THE mist is like the earth's desire. It hides the sun for whom she cries.
95BE still, my heart, these great trees are prayers.
96THE noise of the moment scoffs at the music of the Eternal.
97I THINK of other ages that floated upon the stream of life and love and death and are forgotten, and I feel the freedom of passing away.
98THE sadness of my soul is her bride's veil.
It waits to be lifted in the night.
99DEATH'S stamp gives value to the coin of life; making it possible to buy with life what is truly precious.
100THE cloud stood humbly in a corner of the sky.
The morning crowned it with splendour.
101THE dust receives insult and in return offers her flowers.
102DO not linger to gather flowers to keep them, but walk on, for flowers will keep themselves blooming all your way.
103ROOTS are the branches down in the earth.
Branches are roots in the air.
104THE music of the far-away summer flutters around the Autumn seeking its former nest.
105DO not insult your friend by lending him merits from your own pocket.
106THE touch of the nameless days clings to my heart like mosses round the old tree.
107THE echo mocks her origin to prove she is the original.
108GOD is ashamed when the prosperous boasts of His special favour.
109I CAST my own shadow upon my path, because I have a lamp that has not been lighted.
110MAN goes into the noisy crowd to drown his own clamour of silence.
111THAT which ends in exhaustion is death, but the perfect ending is in the endless.
112THE sun has his simple robe of light. The clouds are decked with gorgeousness.
113THE hills are like shouts of children who raise their arms, trying to catch stars.
114THE road is lonely in its crowd for it is not loved.
115THE power that boasts of its mischiefs is laughed at by the yellow leaves that fall, and clouds that pass by.
116THE earth hums to me to-day in the sun, like a woman at her spinng, some ballad of the ancient
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