The Complete Poetical Works of Rabindranath Tagore. Rabindranath Tagore

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      Sudâs, the gardener, plucked from his tank the last lotus left by the ravage of winter and went to sell it to the king at the palace gate.

      There he met a traveller who said to him, "Ask your price for the last lotus,—I shall offer it to Lord Buddha."

      Sudâs said, "If you pay one golden mâshâ it will be yours."

      The traveller paid it.

      At that moment the king came out and he wished to buy the flower, for he was on his way to see Lord Buddha, and he thought, "It would be a fine thing to lay at his feet the lotus that bloomed in winter."

      When the gardener said he had been offered a golden mâshâ the king offered him ten, but the traveller doubled the price.

      The gardener, being greedy, imagined a greater gain from him for whose sake they were bidding. He bowed and said, "I cannot sell this lotus."

      In the hushed shade of the mango grove beyond the city wall Sudâs stood before Lord Buddha, on whose lips sat the silence of love and whose eyes beamed peace like the morning star of the dew-washed autumn.

      Sudâs looked in his face and put the lotus at his feet and bowed his head to the dust.

      Buddha smiled and asked, "What is your wish, my son?"

      Sudâs cried, "The least touch of your feet."

XX

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      Make me thy poet, O Night, veiled Night!

      There are some who have sat speechless for ages in thy shadow; let me utter their songs.

      Take me up on thy chariot without wheels, running noiselessly from world to world, thou queen in the palace of time, thou darkly beautiful!

      Many a questioning mind has stealthily entered thy courtyard and roamed through thy lampless house seeking for answers.

      From many a heart, pierced with the arrow of joy from the hands of the Unknown, have burst forth glad chants, shaking the darkness to its foundation.

      Those wakeful souls gaze in the starlight in wonder at the treasure they have suddenly found.

      Make me their poet, O Night, the poet of thy fathomless silence.

XXI

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      I will meet one day the Life within me, the joy that hides in my life, though the days perplex my path with their idle dust.

      I have known it in glimpses, and its fitful breath has come upon me, making my thoughts fragrant for a while.

      I will meet one day the Joy without me that dwells behind the screen of light—and will stand in the overflowing solitude where all things are seen as by their creator.

XXII

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      This autumn morning is tired with excess of light, and if your songs grow fitful and languid give me your flute awhile.

      I shall but play with it as the whim takes me,—now take it on my lap, now touch it with my lips, now keep it by my side on the grass.

      But in the solemn evening stillness I shall gather flowers, to deck it with wreaths, I shall fill it with fragrance; I shall worship it with the lighted lamp.

      Then at night I shall come to you and give you back your flute.

      You will play on it the music of midnight when the lonely crescent moon wanders among the stars.

XXIII

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      The poet's mind floats and dances on the waves of life amidst the voices of wind and water.

      Now when the sun has set and the darkened sky draws upon the sea like drooping lashes upon a weary eye it is time to take away his pen, and let his thoughts sink into the bottom of the deep amid the eternal secret of that silence.

XXIV

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      The night is dark and your slumber is deep in the hush of my being.

      Wake, O Pain of Love, for I know not how to open the door, and I stand outside.

      The hours wait, the stars watch, the wind is still, the silence is heavy in my heart.

      Wake, Love, wake! brim my empty cup, and with a breath of song ruffle the night.

XXV

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      The bird of the morning sings.

      Whence has he word of the morning before the morning breaks, and when the dragon night still holds the sky in its cold black coils?

      Tell me, bird of the morning, how, through the twofold night of the sky and the leaves, he found his way into your dream, the messenger out of the east?

      The world did not believe you when you cried, "The sun is on his way, the night is no more."

      O sleeper, awake!

      Bare your forehead, waiting for the first blessing of light, and sing with the bird of the morning in glad faith.

XXVI

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      The beggar in me lifted his lean hands to the starless sky and cried into night's ear with his hungry voice.

      His prayers were to the blind Darkness who lay like a fallen god in a desolate heaven of lost hopes.

      The cry of desire eddied round a chasm of despair, a wailing bird circling its empty nest.

      But when morning dropped anchor at the rim of the East, the beggar in me leapt and cried:

      "Blessed am I that the deaf night denied me—that its coffer was empty."

      He cried, "O Life, O Light, you are precious! and precious is the joy that at last has known СКАЧАТЬ