Stray Birds

By Rabindranath Tagore

[translated from Bengali to English by the author]

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916

[Frontispiece in color by Willy Pogány]

To
T. HARA
of
Yokohama

1

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.

2

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

3

THE world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover.

It becomes small as one song, as one kiss of the eternal.

4

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

5

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

6

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

7

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

8

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

9

ONCE we dreamt that we were strangers.

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

10

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

11

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

12

"WHAT language is thine, O sea?"

   "The language of eternal question."

"What language is thy answer, O sky?

   "The language of eternal silence."

13

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

14

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

15

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

16

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

17

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

18

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

19

MY wishes are fools, they shout across thy songs, my Master.

Let me but listen.

20

I CANNOT choose the best.

The best chooses me.

21

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

22

THAT I exist is a perpetual surprise which is life.

23

"WE, the rustling leaves, have a voice that answers the storms, but who are you so silent?"

"I am a mere flower."

24

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

25

MAN is a born c

...

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