Stray Birds, Page 3
by Rabindranath Tagore
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When old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders. -Rabindranath Tagore
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Stray Birds, CC-CCXCIX
by Rabindranath Tagore
CC
The burning log bursts in flame and cries,- "This is my flower, my death."
CCI
The wasp thinks that the honey-hive of the neighbouring bees is too small. His neighbours ask him to build one still smaller.
CCII
"I cannot keep your waves," says the bank to the river. "Let me keep your footprints in my heart."
CCIII
The day, with the noise of this little earth, drowns the silence of all worlds.
CCIV
The song feels the infinite in the air, the picture in the earth, the poem in the air and the earth; For its words have meaning that walks and music that soars.
CCV
When the sun goes down to the West, the East of his morning stands before him in silence.
CCVI
Let me not put myself wrongly to my world and see it against me.
CCVII
Praise shames me, for I secretly beg for it.
CCVIII
Let my doing nothing when I have nothing to do become untroubled in its depth of peace like the evening in the seashore when the water is silent.
CCIX
Maiden, your simplicity, like the blueness of the lake, reveals your depth of truth.
CCX
The best does not come alone. It comes with the company of all.
CCXI
God's right hand is gentle, but terrible is his left hand.
CCXII
My evening came among the alien trees and spoke in a language which my morning stars did not know.
CCXIII
Night's darkness is a bag that bursts with the gold of the dawn.
CCXIV
Our desire lends the colours of the rainbow to the mere mists and vapours of life.
CCXV
God waits to win back his own flowers as gifts from man's hands.
CCXVI
My sad thoughts tease me asking me their own names.
CCXVII
The service of the fruit is precious, the service of the flower is sweet, but let my service be the service of the leaves in its shade of humble devotion.
CCXVIII
My heart has spread its sails to the idle winds for the shadowy island of Anywhere.
CCXIX
Men are cruel, but Man is kind.
CCXX
Make me thy cup and let my fullness be for thee and for thine.
CCXXI
The storm is like the cry of some god in pain whose love the earth refuses.
CCXXII
The world does not leak because death is not a crack.
CCXXIII
Life has become richer by the love that has been lost.
CCXXIV
My friend, your great heart shone with the sunrise of the East like the snowy summit of a lonely hill in the dawn.
CCXXV
The fountain of death makes the still water of life play.
CCXXVI
Those who have everything but thee, my God, laugh at those who have nothing but thyself.
CCXXVII
The movement of life has its rest in its own music.
CCXXVIII
Kicks only raise dust and not crops from the earth.
CCXXIX
Our names are the light that glows on the sea waves at night and then dies without leaving its signature.
CCXXX
Let him only see the thorns who has eyes to see the rose.
CCXXXI
Set the bird's wings with gold and it will never again soar in the sky.
CCXXXII
The same lotus of our clime blooms here in the alien water with the same sweetness, under another name.
CCXXXIII
In heart's perspective the distance looms large.
CCXXXIV
The moon has her light all over the sky, her dark spots to herself.
CCXXXV
Do not say, "It is morning," and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a new-born child that has no name.
CCXXXVI
Smoke boasts to the sky, and Ashes to the earth, that they are brothers to the fire.
CCXXXVII
The raindrop whispered to the jasmine, "Keep me in your heart for ever." The jasmine sighed, "Alas," and dropped to the ground.
CCXXXVIII
Timid thoughts, do not be afraid of me. I am a poet.
CCXXXIX
The dim silence of my mind seems filled with crickets' chirp- the grey twilight of sound.
CCXL
Rockets, your insult to the stars follows yourself back to the earth.
CCXLI
Thou hast led me through my crowded travels of the day to my evening's loneliness. I wait for its meaning through the stillness of the night.
CCXLII
This life is the crossing of a sea, where we meet in the same narrow ship. In death we reach the shore and go to our different worlds.
CCXLIII
The stream of truth flows through its channels of mistakes.
CCXLIV
My heart is homesick to-day for the one sweet hour across the sea of time.
CCXLV
The bird-song is the echo of the morning light back from the earth.
CCXLVI
"Are you too proud to kiss me?" the morning light asks the buttercup.
CCXLVII
"How may I sing to thee and worship, O Sun?" asked the little flower.
"By the simple silence of thy purity," answered the sun.
CCXLVIII
Man is worse than an animal when he is an animal.
CCXLIX
Dark clouds become heaven's flowers when kissed by light.
CCL
Let not the sword-blade mock its handle for being blunt.
CCLI
The night's silence, like a deep lamp, is burning with the light of its Milky Way.
CCLII
Around the sunny island of life swells day and night death's limitless song of the sea.
CCLIII
Is not this mountain like a flower, with its petals of hills, drinking the sunlight?
CCLIV
The real with its meaning read wrong and emphasis misplaced is the unreal.
CCLV
Find your beauty, my heart, from the world's movement, like the boat that has the greace of the wind and the water.
CCLVI
The eyes are not proud of their sight but of their eyeglasses.
CCLVII
I live in this little world of mine and am afraid to make it the least less. Lift me into thy world and let me have the freedom gladly to lose my all.
CCLVIII
The false can never grow into truth by growing in power.
CCLIX
My heart, with its lapping waves of song, longs to caress this green world of the sunny day.
CCLX
Wayside grass, love the star, then your dreams will come out in flowers.
CCLXI
Let your music, like a sword, pierce the noise of the market to its heart.
CCLXII
The trembling leaves of this tree touch my heart like the fingers of an infant child.
CCLXIII
The little flower lies in the dust. It sought the path of the butterfly.
CCLXIV
I am in the world of the roads. The night comes. Open thy gate, thou world of the home.
CCLXV
I have sung the songs of thy day. In the evening let me carry thy lamp through the stormy path.
CCLXVI
I do not ask thee into the house. Come into my infinite loneliness, my Lover.
CCLXVII
Death belongs to life as birth does. The walk is in the raising of the foot as in the laying of it down.
CCLXVIII
I have learnt the simple meaning of thy whispers in flowers and sunshine- teach me to know thy words in pain and death.
CCLXIX
The night's flower was late when the morning kissed her, she shivered and sighed and dropped to the ground.
CCLXX
Through the sadness of all things I hear the crooning of the Eternal Mother.
CCLXXI
I came to your shore as a stranger, I lived in your house as a guest, I leave your door as a friend, my earth.
CCLXXII
Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone, like the afterglow of sunset at the margin of starry silence.
CCLXXIII
Light in my heart the evening star of rest and then let the night whisper to me of love.
CCLXXXIV
They light their own lamps and sing their own words in their temples. But the birds sing thy name in thine own morning light,- for thy name is joy.
CCLXXXV
Lead me in the centre of they silence to fill my heart with songs.
CCLXXXVI
Let them live who choose in their own hissing world of fireworks. My heart longs for thy stars, my God.
CCLXXXVII
Love's pain sang round my life like the unplumbed sea, and love's joy sang like birds in its flowering groves.
CCLXXXVIII
Put out the lamp when thou wishest. I shall know thy darkness and shall love it.
CCLXXXIX
When I stand before thee at the day's end thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.
CCXC
Some day I shall sing to thee in the sunrise of some other world, "I have seen thee before in the light of the earth, in the love of man."
CCXCI
Clouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky.
CCXCII
Truth raises against itself the storm that scatters its seeds broadcast.
CCXCIII
The storm of the last night has crowned this morning with golden peace.
CCXCIV
Truth seems to come with its final word; and the final word gives birth to its next.
CCXCV
Blessed is he whose fame does not outshine his truth.
CCXCVI
Sweetness of thy name fills my heart when I forget mine- like thy morning sun when the mist is melted.
CCXCVII
The silent night has the beauty of the mother and the clamorous day of the child.
CCXCVIII
The world loved man when he smiled. The world became afraid of him when he laughed.
CCXCIX
God waits for man to regain his childhood in wisdom.
Page 4: CCC-CCCXXV
from The Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore, copyright 1949 by The MacMillan Company.
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