Produced by Eric Eldred, Christine De Ryck, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. THE FUGITIVE BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE TO W.W. PEARSON CONTENTS THE FUGITIVE--I. KACHA AND DEVAYANI TRANSLATIONS THE FUGITIVE--II. AMA AND VINAYAKA THE MOTHER'S PRAYER TRANSLATIONS THE FUGITIVE--III. SOMAKA AND RITVIK KARNA AND KUNTI TRANSLATIONS 1 Darkly you sweep on, Eternal Fugitive, round whose bodiless rush stagnant space frets into eddying bubbles of light. Is your heart lost to the Lover calling you across his immeasurable loneliness? Is the aching urgency of your haste the sole reason why your tangled tresses break into stormy riot and pearls of fire roll along your path as from a broken necklace? Your fleeting steps kiss the dust of this world into sweetness, sweeping aside all waste; the storm centred with your dancing limbs shakes the sacred shower of death over life and freshens her growth. Should you in sudden weariness stop for a moment, the world would rumble into a heap, an encumbrance, barring its own progress, and even the least speck of dust would pierce the sky throughout its infinity with an unbearable pressure. My thoughts are quickened by this rhythm of unseen feet round which the anklets of light are shaken. They echo in the pulse of my heart, and through my blood surges the psalm of the ancient sea. I hear the thundering flood tumbling my life from world to world and form to form, scattering my being in an endless spray of gifts, in sorrowings and songs. The tide runs high, the wind blows, the boat dances like thine own desire, my heart! Leave the hoard on the shore and sail over the unfathomed dark towards limitless light. 2 We came hither together, friend, and now at the cross-roads I stop to bid you farewell. Your path is wide and straight before you, but my call comes up by ways from the unknown. I shall follow wind and cloud; I shall follow the stars to where day breaks behind the hills; I shall follow lovers who, as they walk, twine their days into a wreath on a single thread of song, "I love." 3 It was growing dark when I asked her, "What strange land have I come to?" She only lowered her eyes, and the water gurgled in the throat of her jar, as she walked away. The trees hang vaguely over the bank, and the land appears as though it already belonged to the past. The water is dumb, the bamboos are darkly still, a wristlet tinkles against the water-jar from down the lane. Row no more, but fasten the boat to this tree,--for I love the look of this land. The evening star goes down behind the temple dome, and the pallor of the marble landing haunts the dark water. Belated wayfarers sigh; for light from hidden windows is splintered into the darkness by intervening wayside trees and bushes. Still that wristlet tinkles against the water-jar, and retreating steps rustle from down the lane littered with leaves. The night deepens, the palace towers loom spectre-like, and the town hums wearily. Row no more, but fasten the boat to a tree. Let me seek rest in this strange land, dimly lying under the stars, where darkness tingles with the tinkle of a wristlet knocking against a water-jar. 4 O that I were stored with a secret, like unshed rain in summer clouds--a secret, folded up in silence, that I could wander away with. O that I had some one to whisper to, where slow waters lap under trees that doze in the sun. The hush this evening seems to expect a footfall, and you ask me for the cause of my tears. I cannot give a reason why I weep, for that is a secret still withheld from me. 5 For once be careless, timid traveller, and utterly lose your way; wide-awake though you are, be like broad daylight enticed by and netted in mist. Do not shun the garden of Lost Hearts waiting at the end of the wrong road, where the grass is strewn with wrecked red flowers, and disconsolate water heaves in the troubled sea. Long have you watched over the store gathered by weary years. Let it be stripped, with nothing remaining but the desolate triumph of losing all. 6 Two little bare feet flit over the ground, and seem to embody that metaphor, "Flowers are the footprints of summer." They lightly impress on the dust the chronicle of their adventure, to be erased by a passing breeze. Come, stray into my heart, you tender little feet, and leave the everlasting print of songs on my dreamland path. 7 I am like the night to you, little flower. I can only give you peace and a wakeful silence hidden in the dark. When in the morning you open your eyes, I shall leave you to a world a-hum with bees, and songful with birds. My last gift to you will be a tear dropped into the depth of your youth; it will make your smile all the sweeter, and bemist your outlook on the pitiless mirth of day. 8 Do not stand before my window with those hungry eyes and beg for my secret. It is but a tiny stone of glistening pain streaked with blood-red by passion. What gifts have you brought in both hands to fling before me in the dust? I fear, if I accept, to create a debt that can never be paid even by the loss of all I have. Do not stand before my window with your youth and flowers to shame my destitute life. 9 If I were living in the royal town of Ujjain, when Kalidas was the king's poet, I should know some Malwa girl and fill my thoughts with the music of her name. She would glance at me through the slanting shadow of her eyelids, and allow her veil to catch in the jasmine as an excuse for lingering near me. This very thing happened in some past whose track is lost under time's dead leaves. The scholars fight to-day about dates that play hide-and-seek. I do not break my heart dreaming over flown and vanished ages: but alas and alas again, that those Malwa girls have followed them! To what heaven, I wonder, have they carried in their flower-baskets those days that tingled to the lyrics of the king's poet? This morning, separation from those whom I was born too late to meet weighs on and saddens my heart. Yet April carries the same flowers with which they decked their hair, and the same south breeze fluttered their veils as whispers over modern roses. And, to tell the truth, joys are not lacking to this spring, though Kalidas sing no more; and I know, if he can watch me from the Poets' Paradise, he has reasons to be envious. 10 Be not concerned about her heart, my heart: leave it in the dark. What if her beauty be of the figure and her smile merely of the face? Let me take without question the simple meaning of her glances and be happy. I care not if it be a web of delusion that her arms wind about me, for the web itself is rich and rare, and the deceit can be smiled at and forgotten. Be not concerned about her heart, my heart: be content if the music is true, though the words are not to be believed; enjoy the grace that dances like a lily on the rippling, deceiving surface, whatever may lie beneath. 11 Neither mother nor daughter are you, nor bride, Urvashi.[1] Woman you are, to ravish the soul of Paradise. [Footnote 1: The dancing girl of Paradise who rose from the sea.] When weary-footed evening comes down to the folds whither the cattle have returned, you never trim the house lamps nor walk to the bridal bed with a tremulous heart and a wavering smile on your lips, glad that the dark hours are so secret. Like the dawn you are without veil, Urvashi, and without shame. Who can imagine that aching overflow of splendour which created you! You rose from the churned ocean on the first day of the first spring, with the cup of life in your right hand and poison in your left. The monster sea, lulled like an enchanted snake, laid down its thousand hoods at your feet. Your unblemished radiance rose from the foam, white and naked as a jasmine. Were you ever small, timid or in bud, Urvashi, O Youth everlasting? Did you sleep, cradled in the deep blue night where the strange light of gems plays over coral, shells and moving creatures of dreamlike form, till day revealed your awful fulness of bloom? Adored are you of all men in all ages, Urvashi, O endless wonder! The world throbs with youthful pain at the glance of your eyes, the ascetic lays the fruit of his austerities at your feet, the songs of poets hum and swarm round the perfume of your presence. Your feet, as in careless joy they flit on, wound even the heart of the hollow wind with the tinkle of golden bells. When you dance before the gods, flinging orbits of novel rhythm into space, Urvashi, the earth shivers, leaf and grass, and autumn fields heave and sway; the sea surges into a frenzy of rhyming waves; the stars drop into the sky--beads from the chain that leaps till it breaks on your breast; and the blood dances in men's hearts with sudden turmoil. You are the first break on the crest of heaven's slumber, Urvashi, you thrill the air with unrest. The world bathes your limbs in her tears; with colour of her heart's blood are your feet red; lightly you poise on the wave-tossed lotus of desire, Urvashi; you play forever in that limitless mind wherein labours God's tumultuous dream. 12 You, like a rivulet swift and sinuous, laugh and dance, and your steps sing as you trip along. I, like a bank rugged and steep, stand speechless and stock-still and darkly gaze at you. I, like a big, foolish storm, of a sudden come rushing on and try to rend my being and scatter it parcelled in a whirl of passion. You, like the lightning's flash slender and keen, pierce the heart of the turbulent darkness, to disappear in a vivid streak of laughter. 13 You desired my love and yet you did not love me. Therefore my life clings to you like a chain of which clank and grip grow harsher the more you struggle to be free. My despair has become your deadly companion, clutching at the faintest of your favours, trying to drag you away into the cavern of tears. You have shattered my freedom, and with its wreck built your own prison. 14 I am glad you will not wait for me with that lingering pity in your look. It is only the spell of the night and my farewell words, startled at their own tune of despair, which bring these tears to my eyes. But day will dawn, my eyes will dry and my heart; and there will be no time for weeping. Who says it is hard to forget? The mercy of death works at life's core, bringing it respite from its own foolish persistence. The stormy sea is lulled at last in its rocking cradle; the forest fire falls to sleep on its bed of ashes. You and I shall part, and the cleavage will be hidden under living grass and flowers that laugh in the sun. 15 Of all days you have chosen this one to visit my garden. But the storm passed over my roses last night and the grass is strewn with torn leaves. I do not know what has brought you, now that the hedges are laid low and rills run in the walks; the prodigal wealth of spring is scattered and the scent and song of yesterday are wrecked. Yet stay a while; let me find some remnant flowers, though I doubt if your skirt can be filled. The time will be short, for the clouds thicken and here comes the rain again! 16 I forgot myself for a moment, and I came. But raise your eyes, and let me know if there still linger some shadow of other days, like a pale cloud on the horizon that has been robbed of its rain. For a moment bear with me if I forget myself. The roses are still in bud; they do not yet know how we neglect to gather flowers this summer. The morning star has the same palpitating hush; the early light is enmeshed in the branches that overbrow your window, as in those other days. That times are changed I forget for a little, and have come. I forget if you ever shamed me by looking away when I bared my heart. I only remember the words that stranded on the tremor of your lips; I remember in your dark eyes sweeping shadows of passion, like the wings of a home-seeking bird in the dusk. I forget that you do not remember, and I come. 17 The rain fell fast. The river rushed and hissed. It licked up and swallowed the island, while I waited alone on the lessening bank with my sheaves of corn in a heap. From the shadows of the opposite shore the boat crosses with a woman at the helm. I cry to her, "Come to my island coiled round with hungry water, and take away my year's harvest." She comes, and takes all that I have to the last grain; I ask her to take me. But she says, "No"--the boat is laden with my gift and no room is left for me. 18 The evening beckons, and I would fain follow the travellers who sailed in the last ferry of the ebb-tide to cross the dark. Some were for home, some for the farther shore, yet all have ventured to sail. But I sit alone at the landing, having left my home and missed the boat: summer is gone and my winter harvest is lost. I wait for that love which gathers failures to sow them in tears on the dark, that they may bear fruit when day rises anew. 19 On this side of the water there is no landing; the girls do not come here to fetch water; the land along its edge is shaggy with stunted shrubs; a noisy flock of _saliks_ dig their nests in the steep bank under whose frown the fisher-boats find no shelter. You sit there on the unfrequented grass, and the morning wears on. Tell me what you do on this bank so dry that it is agape with cracks? She looks in my face and says, "Nothing, nothing whatsoever." On this side of the river the bank is deserted, and no cattle come to water. Only some stray goats from the village browse the scanty grass all day, and the solitary water-hawk watches from an uprooted _peepal_ aslant over the mud. You sit there alone in the miserly shade of a _shimool,_ and the morning wears on. Tell me, for whom do you wait? She looks in my face and says, "No one, no one at all!" 20 KACHA AND DEVAYANI KACHA AND DEVAYANI _Young Kacha came from Paradise to learn the secret of immortality from a Sage who taught the Titans, and whose daughter Devayani fell in love with him._ KACHA The time has come for me to take leave, Devayani; I have long sat at your father's feet, but to-day he completed his teaching. Graciously allow me to go back to the land of the Gods whence I came. DEVAYANI You have, as you desired, won that rare knowledge coveted by the Gods;--but think, do you aspire after nothing further? KACHA Nothing. DEVAYANI Nothing at all! Dive into the bottom of your heart; does no timid wish lurk there, fearful lest it be blighted? KACHA For me the sun of fulfilment has risen, and the stars have faded in its light. I have mastered the knowledge which gives life. DEVAYANI Then you must be the one happy being in creation. Alas! now for the first time I feel what torture these days spent in an alien land have been to you, though we offered you our best. KACHA Not so much bitterness! Smile, and give me leave to go. DEVAYANI Smile! But, my friend, this is not your native Paradise. Smiles are not so cheap in this world, where thirst, like a worm in the flower, gnaws at the heart's core; where baffled desire hovers round the desired, and memory never ceases to sigh foolishly after vanished joy. KACHA Devayani, tell me how I have offended? DEVAYANI Is it so easy for you to leave this forest, which through long years has lavished on you shade and song? Do you not feel how the wind wails through these glimmering shadows, and dry leaves whirl in the air, like ghosts of lost hope;--while you alone, who part from us, have a smile on your lips? KACHA This forest has been a second mother to me, for here I have been born again. My love for it shall never dwindle. DEVAYANI When you had driven the cattle to graze on the lawn, yonder banyan tree spread a hospitable shade for your tired limbs against the mid-day heat. KACHA I bow to thee, Lord of the Forest! Remember me, when under thy shade other students chant their lessons to an accompaniment of bees humming and leaves rustling. DEVAYANI And do not forget our Venumati, whose swift water is one stream of singing love. KACHA I shall ever remember her, the dear companion of my exile, who, like a busy village girl, smiles on her errand of ceaseless service and croons a simple song. DEVAYANI But, friend, let me also remind you that you had another companion whose thoughts were vainly busy to make you forget an exile's cares. KACHA The memory of her has become a part of my life. DEVAYANI I recall the day when, little more than a boy, you first arrived. You stood there, near the hedge of the garden, a smile in your eyes. KACHA And I saw you gathering flowers--clad in white, like the dawn bathed in radiance. And I said, "Make me proud by allowing me to help you!" DEVAYANI I asked in surprise who you were, and you meekly answered that you were the son of Vrihaspati, a divine sage at the court of the God Indra, and desired to learn from my father that secret spell which can revive the dead. KACHA I feared lest the Master, the teacher of the Titans, those rivals of the Gods, should refuse to accept me for a disciple. DEVAYANI But he could not refuse me when I pleaded your cause, so greatly he loves his daughter. KACHA Thrice had the jealous Titans slain me, and thrice you prevailed on your father to bring me back to life; therefore my gratitude can never die. DEVAYANI Gratitude! Forget all--I shall not grieve. Do you only remember benefits? Let them perish! If after the day's lessons, in the evening solitude, some strange tremor of joy shook your heart, remember that--but not gratitude. If, as some one passed, a snatch of song got tangled among your texts or the swing of a robe fluttered your studies with delight, remember that when at leisure in your Paradise. What, benefits only!--and neither beauty nor love nor...? KACHA Some things are beyond the power of words. DEVAYANI Yes, yes, I know. My love has sounded your heart's deepest, and makes me bold to speak in defiance of your reserve. Never leave me! remain here! fame gives no happiness. Friend, you cannot now escape, for your secret is mine! KACHA No, no, Devayani. DEVAYANI How "No"? Do not lie to me! Love's insight is divine. Day after day, in raising your head, in a glance, in the motion of your hands, your love spoke as the sea speaks through its waves. On a sudden my voice would send your heart quivering through your limbs--have I never witnessed it? I know you, and therefore you are my captive for ever. The very king of your Gods shall not sever this bond. KACHA Was it for this, Devayani, that I toiled, away from home and kindred, all these years? DEVAYANI Why not? Is only knowledge precious? Is love cheap? Lay hold on this moment. Have the courage to own that a woman's heart is worth all as much penance as men undergo for the sake of power, knowledge, or reputation. KACHA I gave my solemn promise to the Gods that I would bring them this lore of deathless life. DEVAYANI But is it true you had eyes for nothing save your books? That you never broke off your studies to pay me homage with flowers, never lay in wait for a chance, of an evening, to help me water my flower-beds? What made you sit by me on the grass and sing songs you brought hither from the assembly of the stars, while darkness stooped over the river bank as love droops over its own sad silence? Were these parts of a cruel conspiracy plotted in your Paradise? Was all for the sake of access to my father's heart?--and after success, were you, departing, to throw some cheap gratitude, like small coins, to the deluded door-keeper? KACHA What profit were there, proud woman, in knowing the truth? If I did wrong to serve you with a passionate devotion cherished in secret, I have had ample punishment. This is no time to question whether my love be true or not; my life's work awaits me. Though my heart must henceforth enclose a red flame vainly striving to devour emptiness, still I must go back to that Paradise which will nevermore be Paradise to me. I owe the Gods a new divinity, hard won by my studies, before I may think of happiness. Forgive me, Devayani, and know that my suffering is doubled by the pain I unwillingly inflict on you. DEVAYANI Forgiveness! You have angered my heart till it is hard and burning like a thunderbolt! You can go back to your work and your glory, but what is left for me? Memory is a bed of thorns, and secret shame will gnaw at the roots of my life. You came like a wayfarer, sat through the sunny hours in the shade of my garden, and to while time away you plucked all its flowers and wove them into a chain. And now, parting, you snap the thread and let the flowers drop on the dust! Accursed be that great knowledge you have earned!--a burden that, though others share equally with you, will never be lightened. For lack of love may it ever remain as foreign to your life as the cold stars are to the un-espoused darkness of virgin Night! 21 I "Why these preparations without end?"--I said to Mind--"Is some one to come?" Mind replied, "I am enormously busy gathering things and building towers. I have no time to answer such questions." Meekly I went back to my work. When things were grown to a pile, when seven wings of his palace were complete, I said to Mind, "Is it not enough?" Mind began to say, "Not enough to contain--" and then stopped. "Contain what?" I asked. Mind affected not to hear. I suspected that Mind did not know, and with ceaseless work smothered the question. His one refrain was, "I must have more." "Why must you?" "Because it is great." "What is great?" Mind remained silent. I pressed for an answer. In contempt and anger, Mind said, "Why ask about things that are not? Take notice of those that are hugely before you,--the struggle and the fight, the army and armaments, the bricks and mortar, and labourers without number." I thought "Possibly Mind is wise." II Days passed. More wings were added to his palace--more lands to his domain. The season of rains came to an end. The dark clouds became white and thin, and in the rain-washed sky the sunny hours hovered like butterflies over an unseen flower. I was bewildered and asked everybody I met, "What is that music in the breeze?" A tramp walked the road whose dress was wild as his manner; he said, "Hark to the music of the Coming!" I cannot tell why I was convinced, but the words broke from me, "We have not much longer to wait." "It is close at hand," said the mad man. I went to the office and boldly said to Mind, "Stop all work!" Mind asked, "Have you any news?" "Yes," I answered, "News of the Coming." But I could not explain. Mind shook his head and said, "There are neither banners nor pageantry!" III The night waned, the stars paled in the sky. Suddenly the touchstone of the morning light tinged everything with gold. A cry spread from mouth to mouth-- "Here is the herald!" I bowed my head and asked, "Is he coming?" The answer seemed to burst from all sides, "Yes." Mind grew troubled and said, "The dome of my building is not yet finished, nothing is in order." A voice came from the sky, "Pull down your building!" "But why?" asked Mind. "Because to-day is the day of the Coming, and your building is in the way." IV The lofty building lies in the dust and all is scattered and broken. Mind looked about. But what was there to see? Only the morning star and the lily washed in dew. And what else? A child running laughing from its mother's arms into the open light. "Was it only for this that they said it was the day of the Coming?" "Yes, this was why they said there was music in the air and light in the sky." "And did they claim all the earth only for this?" "Yes," came the answer. "Mind, you build walls to imprison yourself. Your servants toil to enslave themselves; but the whole earth and infinite space are for the child, for the New Life." "What does that child bring you?" "Hope for all the world and its joy." Mind asked me, "Poet, do you understand?" "I lay my work aside," I said, "for I must have time to understand." 22 TRANSLATIONS VAISHNAVA SONGS 1 Oh Sakhi,[1] my sorrow knows no bounds. [Footnote 1: The woman friend of a woman.] August comes laden with rain clouds and my house is desolate. The stormy sky growls, the earth is flooded with rain, my love is far away, and my heart is torn with anguish. The peacocks dance, for the clouds rumble and frogs croak. The night brims with darkness flicked with lightning. Vidyapati[2] asks, "Maiden, how are you to spend your days and nights without your lord?" [Footnote 2: The name of the poet.] 2 Lucky was my awakening this morning, for I saw my beloved. The sky was one piece of joy, and my life and youth were fulfilled. To-day my house becomes my house in truth, and my body my body. Fortune has proved a friend, and my doubts are dispelled. Birds, sing your best; moon, shed your fairest light! Let fly your darts, Love-God, in millions! I wait for the moment when my body will grow golden at his touch. Vidyapati says, "Immense is your good fortune, and blessed is your love." 3 I feel my body vanishing into the dust whereon my beloved walks. I feel one with the water of the lake where he bathes. Oh Sakhi, my love crosses death's boundary when I meet him. My heart melts in the light and merges in the mirror whereby he views his face. I move with the air to kiss him when he waves his fan, and wherever he wanders I enclose him like the sky. Govindadas says, "You are the gold-setting, fair maiden, he is the emerald." 4 My love, I will keep you hidden in my eyes; I will thread your image like a gem on my joy and hang it on my bosom. You have been in my heart ever since I was a child, throughout my youth, throughout my life, even through all my dreams. You dwell in my being when I sleep and when I wake. Know that I am a woman, and bear with me when you find me wanting. For I have thought and thought and know for certain that all that is left for me in this world is your love, and if I lose you for a moment I die. Chandidas says, "Be tender to her who is yours in life and death." 5 "Fruit to sell, Fruit to sell," cried the woman at the door. The Child came out of the house. "Give me some fruit," said he, putting a handful of rice in her basket. The fruit-seller gazed at his face and her eyes swam with tears. "Who is the fortunate mother," she cried, "that has clasped you in her arms and fed you at her breast, and whom your dear voice called 'Mother'?" "Offer your fruit to him," says the poet, "and with it your life." II 1 Endlessly varied art thou in the exuberant world, Lady of Manifold Magnificence. Thy path is strewn with lights, thy touch thrills into flowers; that trailing skirt of thine sweeps the whirl of a dance among the stars, and thy many-toned music is echoed from innumerable worlds through signs and colours. Single and alone in the unfathomed stillness of the soul, art thou, Lady of Silence and Solitude, a vision thrilled with light, a lonely lotus blossoming on the stem of love. 2 Behind the rusty iron gratings of the opposite window sits a girl, dark and plain of face, like a boat stranded on a sand-bank when the river is shallow in the summer. I come back to my room after my day's work, and my tired eyes are lured to her. She seems to me like a lake with its dark lonely waters edged by moonlight. She has only her window for freedom: there the morning light meets her musings, and through it her dark eyes like lost stars travel back to their sky. 3 I remember the day. The heavy shower of rain is slackening into fitful pauses, renewed gusts of wind startle it from a first lull. I take up my instrument. Idly I touch the strings, till, without my knowing, the music borrows the mad cadence of that storm. I see her figure as she steals from her work, stops at my door, and retreats with hesitating steps. She comes again, stands outside leaning against the wall, then slowly enters the room and sits down. With head bent, she plies her needle in silence; but soon stops her work, and looks out of the window through the rain at the blurred line of trees. Only this--one hour of a rainy noon filled with shadows and song and silence. 4 While stepping into the carriage she turned her head and threw me a swift glance of farewell. This was her last gift to me. But where can I keep it safe from the trampling hours? Must evening sweep this gleam of anguish away, as it will the last flicker of fire from the sunset? Ought it to be washed off by the rain, as treasured pollens are from heart-broken flowers? Leave kingly glory and the wealth of the rich to death. But may not tears keep ever fresh the memory of a glance flung through a passionate moment? "Give it to me to keep," said my song; "I never touch kings' glory or the wealth of the rich, but these small things are mine for ever." 5 You give yourself to me, like a flower that blossoms at night, whose presence is known by the dew that drips from it, by the odour shed through the darkness, as the first steps of Spring are by the buds that thicken the twigs. You break upon my thought like waves at the high tide, and my heart is drowned under surging songs. My heart knew of your coming, as the night feels the approach of dawn. The clouds are aflame and my sky fills with a great revealing flood. 6 I was to go away; still she did not speak. But I felt, from a slight quiver, her yearning arms would say: "Ah no, not yet." I have often heard her pleading hands vocal in a touch, though they knew not what they said. I have known those arms to stammer when, had they not, they would have become youth's garland round my neck. Their little gestures return to remembrance in the covert of still hours, like truants they playfully reveal things she had kept secret from me. 7 My songs are like bees; they follow through the air some fragrant trace--some memory--of you, to hum around your shyness, eager for its hidden store. When the freshness of dawn droops in the sun, when in the noon the air hangs low with heaviness and the forest is silent, my songs return home, their languid wings dusted with gold. 8 I believe you had visited me in a vision before we ever met, like some foretaste of April before the spring broke into flower. That vision must have come when all was bathed in the odour of _sal_ blossom; when the twilight twinkle of the river fringed its yellow sands, and the vague sounds of a summer afternoon were blended; yes, and had it not laughed and evaded me in many a nameless gleam at other moments? 9 I think I shall stop startled if ever we meet after our next birth, walking in the light of a far-away world. I shall know those dark eyes then as morning stars, and yet feel that they have belonged to some unremembered evening sky of a former life. I shall know that the magic of your face is not all its own, but has stolen the passionate light that was in my eyes at some immemorial meeting, and then gathered from my love a mystery that has now forgotten its origin. 10 Lay down your lute, my love, leave your arms free to embrace me. Let your touch bring my overflowing heart to my body's utmost brink. Do not bend your neck and turn away your face, but offer up a kiss to me, which has been like some perfume long closed in a bud. Do not smother this moment under vain words, but let our hearts quake in a rush of silence sweeping all thoughts to the shoreless delight. 11 You have made me great with your love, though I am but one among the many, drifting in the common tide, rocking in the fluctuant favour of the world. You have given me a seat where poets of all time bring their tribute, and lovers with deathless names greet one another across the ages. Men hastily pass me in the market,--never noting how my body has grown precious with your caress, how I carry your kiss within, as the sun carries in its orb the fire of the divine touch and shines for ever. 12 Like a child that frets and pushes away its toys, my heart to-day shakes its head at every phrase I suggest, and says, "No, not this." Yet words, in the agony of their vagueness, haunt my mind, like vagrant clouds hovering over hills, waiting for some chance wind to relieve them of their rain. But leave these vain efforts, my soul, for the stillness will ripen its own music in the dark. My life to-day is like a cloister during some penance, where the spring is afraid to stir or to whisper. This is not the time, my love, for you to pass the gate; at the mere thought of your anklet bells tinkling down the path, the garden echoes are ashamed. Know that to-morrow's songs are in bud to-day, and should they see you walk by they would strain to breaking their immature hearts. 13 Whence do you bring this disquiet, my love? Let my heart touch yours and kiss the pain out of your silence. The night has thrown up from its depth this little hour, that love may build a new world within these shut doors, to be lighted by this solitary lamp. We have for music but a single reed which our two pairs of lips must play on by turns--for crown, only one garland to bind my hair after I have put it on your forehead. Tearing the veil from my breast I shall make our bed on the floor; and one kiss and one sleep of delight shall fill our small boundless world. 14 All that I had I gave to you, keeping but the barest veil of reserve. It is so thin that you secretly smile at it and I feel ashamed. The gust of the spring breeze sweeps it away unawares, and the flutter of my own heart moves it as the waves move their foam. My love, do not grieve if I keep this flimsy mist of distance round me. This frail reserve of mine is no mere woman's coyness, but a slender stem on which the flower of my self-surrender bends towards you with reticent grace. 15 I have donned this new robe to-day because my body feels like singing. It is not enough that I am given to my love once and for ever, but out of that I must fashion new gifts every day; and shall I not seem a fresh offering, dressed in a new robe? My heart, like the evening sky, has its endless passion for colour, and therefore I change my veils, which have now the green of the cool young grass and now that of the winter rice. To-day my robe is tinted with the rain-rimmed blue of the sky. It brings to my limbs the colour of the boundless, the colour of the oversea hills; and it carries in its folds the delight of summer clouds flying in the wind. 16 I thought I would write love's words in their own colour; but that lies deep in the heart, and tears are pale. Would you know them, friend, if the words were colourless? I thought I would sing love's words to their own tune, but that sounds only in my heart, and my eyes are silent. Would you know them, friend, if there were no tune? 17 In the night the song came to me; but you were not there. It found the words for which I had been seeking all day. Yes, in the stillness a moment after dark they throbbed into music, even as the stars then began to pulse with light; but you were not there. My hope was to sing it to you in the morning; but, try as I might, though the music came, the words hung back, when you were beside me. 18 The night deepens and the dying flame flickers in the lamp. I forgot to notice when the evening--like a village girl who has filled her pitcher at the river a last time for that day--closed the door on her cabin. I was speaking to you, my love, with mind barely conscious of my voice--tell me, had it any meaning? Did it bring you any message from beyond life's borders? For now, since my voice has ceased, I feel the night throbbing with thoughts that gaze in awe at the abyss of their dumbness. 19 When we two first met my heart rang out in music, "She who is eternally afar is beside you for ever." That music is silent, because I have grown to believe that my love is only near, and have forgotten that she is also far, far away. Music fills the infinite between two souls. This has been muffled by the mist of our daily habits. On shy summer nights, when the breeze brings a vast murmur out of the silence, I sit up in my bed and mourn the great loss of her who is beside me. I ask myself, "When shall I have another chance to whisper to her words with the rhythm of eternity in them?" Wake up, my song, from thy languor, rend this screen of the familiar, and fly to my beloved there, in the endless surprise of our first meeting! 20 Lovers come to you, my Queen, and proudly lay their riches at your feet: but my tribute is made up of unfulfilled hopes. Shadows have stolen across the heart of my world and the best in me has lost light. While the fortunate laugh at my penury, I ask you to lend my failings your tears, and so make them precious. I bring you a voiceless instrument. I strained to reach a note which was too high in my heart, and the string broke. While masters laugh at the snapped cord, I ask you to take my lute in your hands and fill its hollowness with your songs. 21 The father came back from the funeral rites. His boy of seven stood at the window, with eyes wide open and a golden amulet hanging from his neck, full of thoughts too difficult for his age. His father took him in his arms and the boy asked him, "Where is mother?" "In heaven," answered his father, pointing to the sky. At night the father groaned in slumber, weary with grief. A lamp dimly burned near the bedroom door, and a lizard chased moths on the wall. The boy woke up from sleep, felt with his hands the emptiness in the bed, and stole out to the open terrace. The boy raised his eyes to the sky and long gazed in silence. His bewildered mind sent abroad into the night the question, "Where is heaven?" No answer came: and the stars seemed like the burning tears of that ignorant darkness. 22 She went away when the night was about to wane. My mind tried to console me by saying, "All is vanity." I felt angry and said, "That unopened letter with her name on it, and this palm-leaf fan bordered with red silk by her own hands, are they not real?" The day passed, and my friend came and said to me, "Whatever is good is true, and can never perish." "How do you know?" I asked impatiently; "was not this body good which is now lost to the world?" As a fretful child hurting its own mother, I tried to wreck all the shelters that ever I had, in and about me, and cried, "This world is treacherous." Suddenly I felt a voice saying--"Ungrateful!" I looked out of the window, and a reproach seemed to come from the star-sprinkled night,--"You pour out into the void of my absence your faith in the truth that I came!" 23 The river is grey and the air dazed with blown sand. On a morning of dark disquiet, when the birds are mute and their nests shake in the gust, I sit alone and ask myself, "Where is she?" The days have flown wherein we sat too near each other; we laughed and jested, and the awe of love's majesty found no words at our meetings. I made myself small, and she trifled away every moment with pelting talk. To-day I wish in vain that she were by me, in the gloom of the coming storm, to sit in the soul's solitude. 24 The name she called me by, like a flourishing jasmine, covered the whole seventeen years of our love. With its sound mingled the quiver of the light through the leaves, the scent of the grass in the rainy night, and the sad silence of the last hour of many an idle day. Not the work of God alone was he who answered to that name; she created him again for herself during those seventeen swift years. Other years were to follow, but their vagrant days, no longer gathered within the fold of that name uttered in her voice, stray and are scattered. They ask me, "Who should fold us?" I find no answer and sit silent, and they cry to me while dispersing, "We seek a shepherdess!" Whom should they seek? That they do not know. And like derelict evening clouds they drift in the trackless dark, and are lost and forgotten. 25 I feel that your brief days of love have not been left behind in those scanty years of your life. I seek to know in what place, away from the slow-thieving dust, you keep them now. I find in my solitude some song of your evening that died, yet left a deathless echo; and the sighs of your unsatisfied hours I find nestled in the warm quiet of the autumn noon. Your desires come from the hive of the past to haunt my heart, and I sit still to listen to their wings. 26 You have taken a bath in the dark sea. You are once again veiled in a bride's robe, and through death's arch you come back to repeat our wedding in the soul. Neither lute nor drum is struck, no crowd has gathered, not a wreath is hung on the gate. Your unuttered words meet mine in a ritual unillumined by lamps. 27 I was walking along a path overgrown with grass, when suddenly I heard from some one behind, "See if you know me?" I turned round and looked at her and said, "I cannot remember your name." She said, "I am that first great Sorrow whom you met when you were young." Her eyes looked like a morning whose dew is still in the air. I stood silent for some time till I said, "Have you lost all the great burden of your tears?" She smiled and said nothing. I felt that her tears had had time to learn the language of smiles. "Once you said," she whispered, "that you would cherish your grief for ever." I blushed and said, "Yes, but years have passed and I forget." Then I took her hand in mine and said, "But you have changed." "What was sorrow once has now become peace," she said. 28 Our life sails on the uncrossed sea whose waves chase each other in an eternal hide-and-seek. It is the restless sea of change, feeding its foaming flocks to lose them over and over again, beating its hands against the calm of the sky. Love, in the centre of this circling war-dance of light and dark, yours is that green island, where the sun kisses the shy forest shade and silence is wooed by birds' singing. 29 AMA AND VINAYAKA AMA AND VINAYAKA _Night on the battlefield:_ AMA _meets her father_ VINAYAKA. AMA Father! VINAYAKA Shameless wanton, you call me "Father"! you who did not shrink from a Mussulman husband! AMA Though you have treacherously killed my husband, yet you are my father; and I hold back a widow's tears, lest they bring God's curse on you. Since we have met on this battlefield after years of separation, let me bow to your feet and take my last leave! VINAYAKA Where will you go, Ama? The tree on which you built your impious nest is hewn down. Where will _you_ take shelter? AMA I have my son. VINAYAKA Leave him! Cast never a fond look back on the result of a sin expiated with blood! Think where to go. AMA Death's open gates are wider than a father's love! VINAYAKA Death indeed swallows sins as the sea swallows the mud of rivers. But you are to die neither to-night nor here. Seek some solitary shrine of holy Shiva far from shamed kindred and all neighbours; bathe three times a day in sacred Ganges, and, while reciting God's name, listen to the last bell of evening worship, that Death may look tenderly upon you, as a father on his sleeping child whose eyes are still wet with tears. Let him gently carry you into his own great silence, as the Ganges carries a fallen flower on its stream, washing every stain away to render it, a fit offering, to the sea. AMA But my son---- VINAYAKA Again I bid you not to speak of him. Lay yourself once more in a father's arms, my child, like a babe fresh from the womb of Oblivion, your second mother. AMA To me the world has become a shadow. Your words I hear, but cannot take to heart. Leave me, father, leave me alone! Do not try to bind me with your love, for its bands are red with my
{'title': 'The Fugitive by Rabindranath Tagore', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}