Complete Works. Rabindranath Tagore
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Название: Complete Works

Автор: Rabindranath Tagore

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Языкознание

Серия:

isbn: 4064066396046

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet.

       Let it not be a death but completeness.

       Let love melt into memory and pain into songs.

       Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest.

       Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night.

       Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence.

       I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way.

       Table of Contents

      In the dusky path of a dream I went to seek the love who was mine in a former life.

       Her house stood at the end of a desolate street.

       In the evening breeze her pet peacock sat drowsing on its perch, and the pigeons were silent in their corner.

       She set her lamp down by the portal and stood before me.

       She raised her large eyes to my face and mutely asked, "Are you well, my friend?"

       I tried to answer, but our language had been lost and forgotten.

       I thought and thought; our names would not come to my mind.

       Tears shone in her eyes.

       She held up her right hand to me.

       I took it and stood silent.

       Our lamp had flickered in the evening breeze and died.

       Table of Contents

      Traveller, must you go?

       The night is still and the darkness swoons upon the forest.

       The lamps are bright in our balcony, the flowers all fresh, and the youthful eyes still awake.

       Is the time for your parting come?

       Traveller, must you go?

       We have not bound your feet with our entreating arms.

       Your doors are open.

       Your horse stands saddled at the gate.

       If we have tried to bar your passage it was but with our songs.

       Did we ever try to hold you back it was but with our eyes.

       Traveller, we are helpless to keep you.

       We have only our tears.

       What quenchless fire glows in your eyes?

       What restless fever runs in your blood?

       What call from the dark urges you?

       What awful incantation have you read among the stars in the sky, that with a sealed secret message the night entered your heart, silent and strange?

       If you do not care for merry meetings, if you must have peace, weary heart, we shall put our lamps out and silence our harps.

       We shall sit still in the dark in the rustle of leaves, and the tired moon will shed pale rays on your window.

       O traveller, what sleepless spirit has touched you from the heart of the mid-night?

       Table of Contents

      I spent my day on the scorching hot dust of the road.

       Now, in the cool of the evening, I knock at the door of the inn.

       It is deserted and in ruins.

       A grim ashath tree spreads its hungry clutching roots through the gaping fissures of the walls. Days have been when wayfarers came here to wash their weary feet. They spread their mats in the courtyard in the dim light of the early moon, and sat and talked of strange lands. They work refreshed in the morning when birds made them glad, and friendly flowers nodded their heads at them from the wayside. But no lighted lamp awaited me when I came here. The black smudges of smoke left by many a forgotten evening lamp stare, like blind eyes, from the wall. Fireflies flit in the bush near the dried-up pond, and bamboo branches fling their shadows on the grass-grown path. I am the guest of no one at the end of my day. The long night is before me, and I am tired.

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      Is that your call again?

       The evening has come.

       Weariness clings around me like the arms of entreating love.

       Do you call me?

       I had given all my day to you, cruel mistress, must you also rob me of my night?

       Somewhere there is an end to everything, and the loneness of the dark is one's own.

       Must your voice cut through it and smite me?

       Has the evening no music of sleep at your gate?

       Do the silent-winged stars never climb the sky above your pitiless tower?

       Do the flowers never drop on the dust in soft death in your garden?

       Must you call me, you unquiet one?

       Then let the sad eyes of love vainly watch and weep.

       Let the lamp burn in the lonely house.

       Let the ferry-boat take the weary labourers to their home.

       I leave behind my dreams and I hasten to your call.

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      A wandering madman was seeking the touchstone, with matted locks tawny and dust-laden, and body worn to a shadow, his lips tight-pressed, like the shut-up doors of his heart, his burning eyes like the lamp of a glow-worm seeking its mate.

       Before him the endless ocean roared.

       The garrulous waves ceaselessly talked of hidden treasures, mocking the ignorance that knew not their meaning.

       Maybe he СКАЧАТЬ