Stray Birds

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it. -Rabindranath Tagore *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Stray Birds, I-XCIX
by Rabindranath Tagore


I

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.

II

O troupe of little vagrants of the world, leave your footprints in my words.

III

The world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover. It becomes small as one song, as one kiss of the eternal.

IV

It is the tears of the earth that keep her smiles in bloom.

V

The mighty desert is burning for the love of a blade of grass who shakes her head and laughs and flies away.

VI

If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.

VII

The sands in your way beg for your song and your movement, dancing water. Will you carry the burden of their lameness?

VIII

Her wistful face haunts my dreams like the rain at night.

IX

Once we dreamt that we were strangers. We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.

X

Sorrow is hushed into peace in my heart like the evening among the silent trees.

XI

Some unseen fingers, like an idle breeze, are playing upon my heart the music of the ripples.

XII

"What language is thine, O sea?"
"The language of eternal question."
"What language is thy answer, O sky?"
"The language of eternal silence."

XIII

Listen, my heart, to the whispers of the world with which it makes love to you.

XIV

The mystery of creation is like the darkness of night-- it is great. Delusions of knowldge are like the fog of the morning.

XV

Do not seat your love upon a precipice because it is high.

XVI

I sit at my window this morning where the world like a passer-by stops for a moment, nods to me and goes.

XVII

These little thoughts are the rustle of leaves; they have their whisper of joy in my mind.

XVIII

What you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow.

XIX

My wishes are fools, they shout across thy songs, my Master. Let me but listen.

XX

I cannot choose the best.
The best chooses me.

XXI

They throw their shadows before them who carry their lantern on their back.

XXII

That I exist is a perpetual surprise which is life.

XXIII

"We, the rustling leaves, have a voice that answers the storms, but who are you, so silent?"
"I am a mere flower."

XXIV

Rest belongs to the work as the eyelids to the eyes.

XXV

Man is a born child, his power is the power of growth.

XXVI

God expects answers for the flowers he sends us, not for the sun and the earth.

XXVII

The light that plays, like a naked child, among the green leaves happily knows not that man can lie.

XXVIII

O Beauty, find thyself in love, not in the flattery of thy mirror.

XXIX

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."

XXX

"Moon, for what do you wait?"
"To salute the sun for whom I must make way."

XXXI

The trees come up to my window like the yearning voice of the dumb earth.

XXXII

His own mornings are new surprises to God.

XXXIV

The dry river-bed finds no thanks for its past.

XXXV

The bird wishes it were a cloud.
The cloud wishes it were a bird.

XXXVI

The waterfall sings, "I find my song, when I find my freedom."

XXXVII

I cannot tell why this heart languishes in silence.
It is for small needs it never asks, or knows or remembers.

XXXVIII

Woman, when you move about in your household service your limbs sing like a hill stream amongst its pebbles.

XXXIX

The sun goes to cross the Western sea, leaving its last salutations to the East.

XL

Do not blame your food because you have no appetite.

XLI

The trees, like the longings of the earth, stand a-tiptoe to peep at the heaven.

XLII

You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.

XLIII

The fish in the water is silent, the animal on he 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.

XLIV

The world rushes on over the strings of the lingering heart making the music of sadness.

XLV

He has made his weapons his gods. When his weapons win he is defeated himself.

XLVI

God finds himself by creating.

XLVII

Shadow, with her veil drawn, follows Light in secret meekness, with her silent steps of love.

XLVIII

The stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies.

XLIX

I thank thee that i am none of the wheels of power but I am one with the living creatures that are crushed by it.

L

The mind, sharp but not broad, sticks at every point but does not move.

LI

Your idol is shattered in the dust to prove that God's dust is greater than your idol.

LII

Man does not reveal himself in his history, he struggles up through it.

LIII

While 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."

LIV

Like the meeting of the seargulls and the waves we meet and come near. The seagulls fly off, the waves roll away and we depart.

LV

My day is done, and I am like a boat drawn on the beach, listening to the dance-music of the tide in the evening.

LVI

Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it.

LVII

We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.

LVIII

The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of its tail.

LIX

Never be afraid of the moments-- thus sings the voice of the everlasting.

LX

The hurricane seeks the shortest road by the no-road, and suddenly ends its search in the Nowhere.

LXI

Take my wine in my own cup, friend. It loses its wreath of foam when poured into that of others.

LXII

The Perfect decks itself in beauty for the love of the Imperfect.

LXIII

God says to man, "I heal you, therefore I hurt, love you, therefore punish."

LXIV

Thank the flame for its light, but do not forget the lampholder standing in the shade with constancy of patience.

LXV

Tiny grass, your steps are small, but you possess the earth under your tread.

LXVI

The infant flower opens its bud and cries, "Dear World, please do not fade."

LXVII

God grows weary of great kingdoms, but never of little flowers.

LXVIII

Wrong cannot afford defeat but Right can.

LXIX

"I give my whole water in joy," sings the waterfall, "though little of it is enough for the thirsty."

LXX

Where is the fountain that throws up these flowers in a ceaseless outbreak of ecstacy?

LXXI

The woodcutter's axe begged for its handle from the tree. The tree gave it.

LXXII

In my solitude of heart I feel the sigh of this widowed evening veiled with mist and rain.

LXXIII

Chastity is a wealth that comes from abundance of love.

LXXIV

The mist, like love, plays upon the heart of the hills and brings out surprises of beauty.

LXXV

We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.

LXXVI

The poet wind is out over the sea and the forest to seek his own voice.

LXXVII

Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.

LXXVIII

The grass seeks her crowd in the earth. The tree seeks his solitude of the sky.

LXXIX

Man barricades against himself.

LXXX

Your voice, my friend, wanders in my heart, like the muffled sound of the sea among these listening pines.

LXXXI

What is this unseen flame of darkness whose sparks are the stars?

LXXXII

Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death like autumn leaves.

LXXXIII

He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gate open.

LXXXIV

In death the many becomes one; in life the one becomes many. Religion will be one when God is dead.

LXXXV

The artist is the lover of Nature, therefore he is her slave and her master.

LXXXVI

"How far are you from me, O Fruit?"
"I am hidden in your heart, O Flower."

LXXXVII

This longing is for the one who is felt in the dark, but not seen in the day.

LXXXVIII

"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.

LXXXIX

The scabbard is content to be dull when it protects the keenness of the sword.

XC

In darkness the One appears as uniform; in the light the One appears as manifold.

XCI

The great earth makes herself hospitable with the help of the grass.

XCII

The birth and death of the leaves are the rapid whirls of the eddy whose wider circles move slowly among the stars.

XCIII

Power 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.

XCIV

The mist is like the earth's desire. It hides the sun for whom she cries.

XCV

Be still, my heart, these great trees are prayers.

XCVI

The noise of the moment scoffs at the music of the Eternal.

XCVII

I 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.

XCVIII

The sadness of my soul is her bride's veil.
It waits to be lifted in the night.

XCIX
Death's stamp gives value to the coin of life; making it possible to buy with life what is truly precious.



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from The Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore, copyright 1949 by The MacMillan Company.

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