sleep-scattering

poems from song offerings by rabindranath tagore
translated by joe winter

77

the pain the soul bears, and life's being
of pain, alas, even from birth's freeing --
     o let your flame tower high and higher,
     spare not, admit me to the fire
     though frail, all earth-bound pale desire
          into its ashes fleeing.

o sound the call, the call that must be,
     why needlessly postpone it?
this blind entanglement of the heart,
     tear it away, disown it!
          now may the crash of thunder break --
          so let the noise your conch will make,
          pride-shattering, sleep-scattering, wake
               into a brilliant seeing.

90

strike me more, i will endure it --
     let the blows come.
with a harder tune now make
     these life-strings thrum.
as yet the melody in them waking
is minor, its full tune not taking --
a crueller cadence, by your making,
     let it become.

kind compassion, o my dear one
     is not the whole.
in tender music's play let me not
     lose my soul.
let all fires explode and quiver,
let all winds cry out and shiver. . .
with all the skies awake, deliver
     the all and sum.