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Title: Stray Birds

Author: Rabindranath Tagore

Posting Date: March 27, 2010 [EBook #6524]
Release Date: September, 2004
First Posted: December 25, 2002

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRAY BIRDS ***




Produced by Chetan K. Jain and Eric Eldred









Stray Birds


By Rabindranath Tagore


[translated from Bengali to English by the author]


New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916


[Frontispiece in color by Willy Pogany]



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 child, his power is the power of growth.

26
God expects answers for the flowers he sends us, not for the sun
and the earth.

27
The light that plays, like a naked child, among the green leaves
happily knows not that man can lie.

28
O Beauty, find thyself in love, not in the flattery of thy
mirror.

29
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. "

30
"Moon, for what do you wait? "

"To salute the sun for whom I must make way. "

31
The trees come up to my window like the yearning voice of the
dumb earth.

32
His own mornings are new surprises to God.

33
Life finds its wealth by the claims of the world, and its worth
by the claims of love.

34
The dry river-bed finds no thanks for its past.

35
The bird wishes it were a cloud. The cloud wishes it were a
bird.

36
The waterfall sings, "I find my song, when I find my freedom. "

37
I cannot tell why this heart languishes in silence.
It is for small needs it never asks, or knows or remembers.

38
Woman, when you move about in your household service your limbs
sing like a hill stream among its pebbles.

39
The sun goes to cross the Western sea, leaving its last
salutation to the East.

40
Do not blame your food because you have no appetite.

41
The trees, like the longings of the earth, stand a-tiptoe to peep
at the heaven.

42
You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I
had been waiting long.

43
The fish in the water is silent, the animal on the 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.

44
The world rushes on over the strings of the lingering heart
making the music of sadness.

45
He has made his weapons his gods. When his weapons win he is
defeated himself.

46
God finds himself by creating.

47
Shadow, with her veil drawn, follows Light in secret meekness,
with her silent steps of love.

48
The stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies.

49
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.

50
The mind, sharp but not broad, sticks at every point but does not
move.

51
Your idol is shattered in the dust to prove that God's dust is
greater than your idol.

52
Man does not reveal himself in his history, he struggles up
through it.

53
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. "

54
Like the meeting of the seagulls and the waves we meet and come
near. The seagulls fly off, the waves roll away and we depart.

55
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.

56
Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it.

57
We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.

58
The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of its tail.

59
Never be afraid of the moments--thus sings the voice of the
everlasting.

60
The hurricane seeks the shortest road by the no-road, and
suddenly ends its search in the Nowhere.

61
Take my wine in my own cup, friend.
It loses its wreath of foam when poured into that of others.

62
The Perfect decks itself in beauty for the love of the Imperfect.

63
God says to man, "I heal you therefore I hurt, love you therefore
punish. "

64
Thank the flame for its light, but do not forget the lampholder
standing in the shade with constancy of patience.

65
Tiny grass, your steps are small, but you possess the earth under
your tread.

66
The infant flower opens its bud and cries, "Dear World, please do
not fade. "

67
God grows weary of great kingdoms, but never of little flowers.

68
Wrong cannot afford defeat but Right can.

69
"I give my whole water in joy," sings the waterfall, "though
little of it is enough for the thirsty. "

70
Where is the fountain that throws up these flowers in a ceaseless
outbreak of ecstasy?

71
The woodcutter's axe begged for its handle from the tree.
The tree gave it.

72
In my solitude of heart I feel the sigh of this widowed evening
veiled with mist and rain.

73
Chastity is a wealth that comes from abundance of love.

74
The mist, like love, plays upon the heart of the hills and brings
out surprises of beauty.

75
We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.

76
The poet wind is out over the sea and the forest to seek his own
voice.

77
Every child comes with the message that God is not yet
discouraged of man.

78
The grass seeks her crowd in the earth.
The tree seeks his solitude of the sky.

79
Man barricades against himself.

80
Your voice, my friend, wanders in my heart, like the muffled
sound of the sea among these listening pines.

81
What is this unseen flame of darkness whose sparks are the stars?

82
Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death like autumn
leaves.

83
He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds
the gate open.

84
In death the many becomes one; in life the one becomes many.
Religion will be one when God is dead.

85
The artist is the lover of Nature, therefore he is her slave and
her master.

86
"How far are you from me, O Fruit? "

"I am hidden in your heart, O Flower. "

87
This longing is for the one who is felt in the dark, but not seen
in the day.

88
"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.

89
The scabbard is content to be dull when it protects the keenness
of the sword.

90
In darkness the One appears as uniform; in the light the One
appears as manifold.

91
The great earth makes herself hospitable with the help of the
grass.

92
The birth and death of the leaves are the rapid whirls of the
eddy whose wider circles move slowly among stars.

93
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.

94
The mist is like the earth's desire. It hides the sun for whom
she cries.

95
Be still, my heart, these great trees are prayers.

96
The noise of the moment scoffs at the music of the Eternal.

97
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.

98
The sadness of my soul is her bride's veil.
It waits to be lifted in the night.

99
Death's stamp gives value to the coin of life; making it possible
to buy with life what is truly precious.

100
The cloud stood humbly in a corner of the sky.
The morning crowned it with splendour.

101
The dust receives insult and in return offers her flowers.

102
Do not linger to gather flowers to keep them, but walk on, for
flowers will keep themselves blooming all your way.

103
Roots are the branches down in the earth.
Branches are roots in the air.

104
The music of the far-away summer flutters around the Autumn
seeking its former nest.

105
Do not insult your friend by lending him merits from your own
pocket.

106
The touch of the nameless days clings to my heart like mosses
round the old tree.

107
The echo mocks her origin to prove she is the original.

108
God is ashamed when the prosperous boasts of His special favour.

109
I cast my own shadow upon my path, because I have a lamp that has
not been lighted.

110
Man goes into the noisy crowd to drown his own clamour of
silence.

111
That which ends in exhaustion is death, but the perfect ending is
in the endless.

112
The sun has his simple robe of light. The clouds are decked with
gorgeousness.

113
The hills are like shouts of children who raise their arms,
trying to catch stars.

114
The road is lonely in its crowd for it is not loved.

115
The power that boasts of its mischiefs is laughed at by the
yellow leaves that fall, and clouds that pass by.

116
The earth hums to me to-day in the sun, like a woman at her
spinng, some ballad of the ancient time in a forgotten tongue.

117
The grass-blade is worth of the great world where it grows.

118
Dream is a wife who must talk.
Sleep is a husband who silently suffers.

119
The night kisses the fading day whispering to his ear, "I am
death, your mother. I am to give you fresh birth. "

120
I feel, thy beauty, dark night, like that of the loved woman when
she has put out the lamp.

121
I carry in my world that flourishes the worlds that have failed.

122
Dear friend, I feel the silence of your great thoughts of may a
deepening eventide on this beach when I listen to these waves.

123
The bird thinks it is an act of kindness to give the fish a lift
in the air.

124
"In the moon thou sendest thy love letters to me," said the night
to the sun.

"I leave my answers in tears upon the grass. "

125
The Great is a born child; when he dies he gives his great
childhood to the world.

126
Not hammerstrokes, but dance of the water sings the pebbles into
perfection.

127
Bees sip honey from flowers and hum their thanks when they leave.
The gaudy butterfly is sure that the flowers owe thanks to him.

128
To be outspoken is easy when you do not wait to speak the
complete truth.

129
Asks the Possible to the Impossible, "Where is your dwelling
place? "

"In the dreams of the impotent," comes the answer.

130
If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out.

131
I hear some rustle of things behind my sadness of heart,--I
cannot see them.

132
Leisure in its activity is work.
The stillness of the sea stirs in waves.

133
The leaf becomes flower when it loves.
The flower becomes fruit when it worships.

134
The roots below the earth claim no rewards for making the
branches fruitful.

135
This rainy evening the wind is restless.
I look at the swaying branches and ponder over the greatness of
all things.

136
Storm of midnight, like a giant child awakened in the untimely
dark, has begun to play and shout.

137
Thou raisest thy waves vainly to follow thy lover. O sea, thou
lonely bride of the storm.

138
"I am ashamed of my emptiness," said the Word to the Work.
"I know how poor I am when I see you," said the Work to the Word.

139
Time is the wealth of change, but the clock in its parody makes
it mere change and no wealth.

140
Truth in her dress finds facts too tight.
In fiction she moves with ease.
141
When I travelled to here and to there, I was tired of thee, O
Road, but now when thou leadest me to everywhere I am wedded to
thee in love.

142
Let me think that there is one among those stars that guides my
life through the dark unknown.

143
Woman, with the grace of your fingers you touched my things and
order came out like music.

144
One sad voice has its nest among the ruins of the years.
It sings to me in the night,--"I loved you. "

145
The flaming fire warns me off by its own glow.
Save me from the dying embers hidden under ashes.

146
I have my stars in the sky,
But oh for my little lamp unlit in my house.

147
The dust of the dead words clings to thee.
Wash thy soul with silence.

148
Gaps are left in life through which comes the sad music of death.

149
The world has opened its heart of light in the morning.
Come out, my heart, with thy love to meet it.

150
My thoughts shimmer with these shimmering leaves and my heart
sings with the touch of this sunlight; my life is glad to be
floating with all things into the blue of space, into the dark of
time.

151
God's great power is in the gentle breeze, not in the storm.

152
This is a dream in which things are all loose and they oppress.
I shall find them gathered in thee when I awake and shall be
free.

153
"Who is there to take up my duties? " asked the setting sun.

"I shall do what I can, my Master," said the earthen lamp.

154
By plucking her petals you do not gather the beauty of the
flower.

155
Silence will carry your voice like the nest that holds the
sleeping birds.

156
The Great walks with the Small without fear.
The Middling keeps aloof.

157
The night opens the flowers in secret and allows the day to get
thanks.

158
Power takes as ingratitude the writhings of its victims.

159
When we rejoice in our fulness, then we can part with our fruits
with joy.

160
The raindrops kissed the earth and whispered,--"We are thy
homesick children, mother, come back to thee from the heaven. "

161
The cobweb pretends to catch dew-drops and catches flies.

162
Love! when you come with the burning lamp of pain in your hand,
I can see your face and know you as bliss.

163
"The learned say that your lights will one day be no more. " said
the firefly to the stars.

The stars made no answer.

164
In the dusk of the evening the bird of some early dawn comes to
the nest of my silence.

165
Thoughts pass in my mind like flocks of ducks in the sky.
I hear the voice of their wings.

166
The canal loves to think that rivers exist solely to supply it
with water.

167
The world has kissed my soul with its pain, asking for its return
in songs.

168
That which oppresses me, is it my soul trying to come out in the
open, or the soul of the world knocking at my heart for its
entrance?

169
Thought feeds itself with its own words and grows.

170
I have dipped the vessel of my heart into this silent hour; it
has filled with love.

171
Either you have work or you have not.
When you have to say, "Let us do something," then begins
mischief.

172
The sunflower blushed to own the nameless flower as her kin.
The sun rose and smiled on it, saying, "Are you well, my
darling? "

173
"Who drives me forward like fate? "

"The Myself striding on my back. "

174
The clouds fill the watercups of the river, hiding themselves in
the distant hills.

175
I spill water from my water jar as I walk on my way,
Very little remains for my home.

176
The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark.
The small truth has words that are clear; the great truth has
great silence.

177
Your smile was the flowers of your own fields, your talk was the
rustle of your own mountain pines, but your heart was the woman
that we all know.

178
It is the little things that I leave behind for my loved ones,--
great things are for everyone.

179
Woman, thou hast encircled the world's heart with the depth of
thy tears as the sea has the earth.

180
The sunshine greets me with a smile. The rain, his sad sister,
talks to my heart.

181
My flower of the day dropped its petals forgotten.
In the evening it ripens into a golden fruit of memory.

182
I am like the road in the night listening to the footfalls of its
memories in silence.

183
The evening sky to me is like a window, and a lighted lamp, and a
waiting behind it.

184
He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good.

185
I am the autumn cloud, empty of rain, see my fulness in the field
of ripened rice.

186
They hated and killed and men praised them.
But God in shame hastens to hide its memory under the green
grass.

187
Toes are the fingers that have forsaken their past.

188
Darkness travels towards light, but blindness towards death.

189
The pet dog suspects the universe for scheming to take its place.

190
Sit still my heart, do not raise your dust.
Let the world find its way to you.

191
The bow whispers to the arrow before it speeds forth--"Your
freedom is mine. "

192
Woman, in your laughter you have the music of the fountain of
life.

193
A mind all logic is like a knife all blade.
It makes the hand bleed that uses it.

194
God loves man's lamp lights better than his own great stars.

195
This world is the world of wild storms kept tame with the music
of beauty.

196
"My heart is like the golden casket of thy kiss," said the sunset
cloud to the sun.

197
By touching you may kill, by keeping away you may possess.

198
The cricket's chirp and the patter of rain come to me through the
dark, like the rustle of dreams from my past youth.

199
"I have lost my dewdrop," cries the flower to the morning sky
that has lost all its stars.

200
The burning log bursts in flame and cries,--"This is my flower,
my death. "

201
The wasp thinks that the honey-hive of the neighbouring bees is
too small.
His neighbours ask him to build one still smaller.

202
"I cannot keep your waves," says the bank to the river.

"Let me keep your footprints in my heart. "

203
The day, with the noise of this little earth, drowns the silence
of all worlds.

204
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.

205
When the sun goes down to the West, the East of his morning
stands before him in silence.

206
Let me not put myself wrongly to my world and set it against me.

207
Praise shames me, for I secretly beg for it.

208
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.

209
Maiden, your simplicity, like the blueness of the lake, reveals
your depth of truth.

210
The best does not come alone. It comes with the company of the
all.

211
God's right hand is gentle, but terrible is his left hand.

212
My evening came among the alien trees and spoke in a language
which my morning stars did not know.

213
Night's darkness is a bag that bursts with the gold of the dawn.

214
Our desire lends the colours of the rainbow to the mere mists and
vapours of life.

215
God waits to win back his own flowers as gifts from man's hands.

216
My sad thoughts tease me asking me their own names.

217
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.

218
My heart has spread its sails to the idle winds for the shadowy
island of Anywhere.

219
Men are cruel, but Man is kind.

220
Make me thy cup and let my fulness be for thee and for thine.

221
The storm is like the cry of some god in pain whose love the
earth refuses.

222
The world does not leak because death is not a crack.

223
Life has become richer by the love that has been lost.

224
My friend, your great heart shone with the sunrise of the East
like the snowy summit of a lonely hill in the dawn.

225
The fountain of death makes the still water of life play.

226
Those who have everything but thee, my God, laugh at those who
have nothing but thyself.

227
The movement of life has its rest in its own music.

228
Kicks only raise dust and not crops from the earth.

229
Our names are the light that glows on the sea waves at night and
then dies without leaving its signature.

230
Let him only see the thorns who has eyes to see the rose.

231
Set bird's wings with gold and it will never again soar in the
sky.

232
The same lotus of our clime blooms here in the alien water with
the same sweetness, under another name.

233
In heart's perspective the distance looms large.

234
The moon has her light all over the sky, her dark spots to
herself.

235
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.

236
Smoke boasts to the sky, and Ashes to the earth, that they are
brothers to the fire.

237
The raindrop whispered to the jasmine, "Keep me in your heart for
ever. "

The jasmine sighed, "Alas," and dropped to the ground.

238
Timid thoughts, do not be afraid of me.
I am a poet.

239
The dim silence of my mind seems filled with crickets' chirp--the
grey twilight of sound.

240
Rockets, your insult to the stars follows yourself back to the
earth.

241
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.

242
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.

243
The stream of truth flows through its channels of mistakes.

244
My heart is homesick to-day for the one sweet hour across the sea
of time.

245
The bird-song is the echo of the morning light back from the
earth.

246
"Are you too proud to kiss me? " the morning light asks the
buttercup.

247
"How may I sing to thee and worship, O Sun? " asked the little
flower.

"By the simple silence of thy purity," answered the sun.

248
Man is worse than an animal when he is an animal.

249
Dark clouds become heaven's flowers when kissed by light.

250
Let not the sword-blade mock its handle for being blunt.

251
The night's silence, like a deep lamp, is burning with the light
of its milky way.

252
Around the sunny island of Life swells day and night death's
limitless song of the sea.

253
Is not this mountain like a flower, with its petals of hills,
drinking the sunlight?

254
The real with its meaning read wrong and emphasis misplaced is
the unreal.

255
Find your beauty, my heart, from the world's movement, like the
boat that has the grace of the wind and the water.

256
The eyes are not proud of their sight but of their eyeglasses.

257
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.

258
The false can never grow into truth by growing in power.

259
My heart, with its lapping waves of song, longs to caress this
green world of the sunny day.

260
Wayside grass, love the star, then your dreams will come out in
flowers.

261
Let your music, like a sword, pierce the noise of the market to
its heart.

262
The trembling leaves of this tree touch my heart like the fingers
of an infant child.

263
This sadness of my soul is her bride's veil.
It waits to be lifted in the night.

264
The little flower lies in the dust.
It sought the path of the butterfly.

265
I am in the world of the roads. The night comes. Open thy gate,
thou world of the home.

266
I have sung the songs of thy day. In the evening let me carry
thy lamp through the stormy path.

267
I do not ask thee into the house.
Come into my infinite loneliness, my Lover.

268
Death belongs to life as birth does. The walk is in the raising
of the foot as in the laying of it down.

269
I have learnt the simple meaning of thy whispers in flowers and
sunshine--teach me to know thy words in pain and death.

270
The night's flower was late when the morning kissed her, she
shivered and sighed and dropped to the ground.

271
Through the sadness of all things I hear the crooning of the
Eternal Mother.

272
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.

273
Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone, like the afterglow
of sunset at the margin of starry silence.

274
Light in my heart the evening star of rest and then let the night
whisper to me of love.

275
I am a child in the dark.
I stretch my hands through the coverlet of night for thee,
Mother.

276
The day of work is done. Hide my face in your arms, Mother.
Let me dream.

277
The lamp of meeting burns long; it goes out in a moment at the
parting.

278
One word keep for me in thy silence, O World, when I am dead, "I
have loved. "

279
We live in this world when we love it.

280
Let the dead have the immortality of fame, but the living the
immortality of love.

281
I have seen thee as the half-awakened child sees his mother in
the dusk of the dawn and then smiles and sleeps again.

282
I shall die again and again to know that life is inexhaustible.

283
While I was passing with the crowd in the road I saw thy smile
from the balcony and I sang and forgot all noise.

284
Love is life in its fulness like the cup with its wine.

285
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.

286
Lead me in the centre of thy silence to fill my heart with songs.

287
Let them live who choose in their own hissing world of fireworks.
My heart longs for thy stars, my God.

288
Love's pain sang round my life like the unplumbed sea, and love's
joy sang like birds in its flowering groves.

289
Put out the lamp when thou wishest.
I shall know thy darkness and shall love it.

290
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.

291
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. "

292
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.

293
Truth raises against itself the storm that scatters its seeds
broadcast.

294
The storm of the last night has crowned this morning with golden
peace.

295
Truth seems to come with its final word; and the final word gives
birth to its next.