Fruit Gathering
R >>
Rabindranath Tagore >> Fruit Gathering
Stung with the night's fang the sky falls upon the sea, poisoned
with black fear.
The waves dash their heads against the dark unseen, and the
Boatman is out crossing the wild sea.
The Boatman is out, I know not for what tryst, startling the
night with the sudden white of his sails.
I know not at what shore, at last, he lands to reach the silent
courtyard where the lamp is burning and to find her who sits in
the dust and waits.
What is the quest that makes his boat care not for storm nor
darkness?
Is it heavy with gems and pearls?
Ah, no, the Boatman brings with him no treasure, but only a white
rose in his hand and a song on his lips.
It is for her who watches alone at night with her lamp burning.
She dwells in the wayside hut. Her loose hair flies in the wind
and hides her eyes.
The storm shrieks through her broken doors, the light flickers in
her earthen lamp flinging shadows on the walls.
Through the howl of the winds she hears him call her name, she
whose name is unknown.
It is long since the Boatman sailed. It will be long before the
day breaks and he knocks at the door.
The drums will not be beaten and none will know.
Only light shall fill the house, blessed shall be the dust, and
the heart glad.
All doubts shall vanish in silence when the Boatman comes to the
shore.
XLII
I cling to this living raft, my body, in the narrow stream of my
earthly years.
I leave it when the crossing is over. And then?
I do not know if the light there and the darkness are the same.
The Unknown is the perpetual freedom:
He is pitiless in his love.
He crushes the shell for the pearl, dumb in the prison of the
dark.
You muse and weep for the days that are done, poor heart!
Be glad that days are to come!
The hour strikes, O pilgrim!
It is time for you to take the parting of the ways!
His face will be unveiled once again and you shall meet.
XLIII
Over the relic of Lord Buddha King Bimbisâr built a shrine, a
salutation in white marble.
There in the evening would come all the brides and daughters of
the King's house to offer flowers and light lamps.
When the son became king in his time he washed his father's creed
away with blood, and lit sacrificial fires with its sacred books.
The autumn day was dying. The evening hour of worship was near.
Shrimati, the queen's maid, devoted to Lord Buddha, having bathed
in holy water, and decked the golden tray with lamps and fresh
white blossoms, silently raised her dark eyes to the queen's
face.
The queen shuddered in fear and said, "Do you not know, foolish
girl, that death is the penalty for whoever brings worship to
Buddha's shrine?
"Such is the king's will."
Shrimati bowed to the queen, and turning away from her door came
and stood before Amitâ, the newly wed bride of the king's son.
A mirror of burnished gold on her lap, the newly wed bride was
braiding her dark long tresses and painting the red spot of good
luck at the parting of her hair.
Her hands trembled when she saw the young maid, and she cried,
"What fearful peril would you bring me! Leave me this instant."
Princess Shuklâ sat at the window reading her book of romance by
the light of the setting sun.
She started when she saw at her door the maid with the sacred
offerings.
Her book fell down from her lap, and she whispered in Shrimati's
ears, "Rush not to death, daring woman!"
Shrimati walked from door to door. She raised her head and
cried, "O women of the king's house, hasten!
"The time for our Lord's worship is come!"
Some shut their doors in her face and some reviled her.
The last gleam of daylight faded from the bronze dome of the
palace tower.
Deep shadows settled in street corners: the bustle of the city
was hushed: the gong at the temple of Shiva announced the time of
the evening prayer.
In the dark of the autumn evening, deep as a limpid lake, stars
throbbed with light, when the guards of the palace garden were
startled to see through the trees a row of lamps burning at the
shrine of Buddha.
They ran with their swords unsheathed, crying, "Who are you,
foolish one, reckless of death?"
"I am Shrimati," replied a sweet voice, "the servant of Lord
Buddha."
The next moment her heart's blood coloured the cold marble with
its red.
And in the still hour of stars died the light of the last lamp of
worship at the foot of the shrine.
XLIV
The day that stands between you and me makes her last bow of
farewell.
The night draws her veil over her face, and hides the one lamp
burning in my chamber.
Your dark servant comes noiselessly and spreads the bridal carpet
for you to take your seat there alone with me in the wordless
silence till night is done.
XLV
My night has passed on the bed of sorrow, and my eyes are tired.
My heavy heart is not yet ready to meet morning with its crowded
joys.
Draw a veil over this naked light, beckon aside from me this
glaring flash and dance of life.
Let the mantle of tender darkness cover me in its folds, and
cover my pain awhile from the pressure of the world.
XLVI
The time is past when I could repay her for all that I received.
Her night has found its morning and thou hast taken her to thy
arms: and to thee I bring my gratitude and my gifts that were for
her.
For all hurts and offences to her I come to thee for forgiveness.
I offer to thy service those flowers of my love that remained in
bud when she waited for them to open.
XLVII
I found a few old letters of mine carefully hidden in her box--a
few small toys for her memory to play with.
With a timorous heart she tried to steal these trifles from
time's turbulent stream, and said, "These are mine only!"
Ah, there is no one now to claim them, who can pay their price
with loving care, yet here they are still.
Surely there is love in this world to save her from utter loss,
even like this love of hers that saved these letters with such
fond care.
XLVIII
Bring beauty and order into my forlorn life, woman, as you
brought them into my house when you lived.
Sweep away the dusty fragments of the hours, fill the empty jars,
and mend all that has been neglected.
Then open the inner door of the shrine, light the candle, and let
us meet there in silence before our God.
XLIX
The pain was great when the strings were being tuned, my Master!
Begin your music, and let me forget the pain; let me feel in
beauty what you had in your mind through those pitiless days.
The waning night lingers at my doors, let her take her leave in
songs.
Pour your heart into my life strings, my Master, in tunes that
descend from your stars.
L
In the lightning flash of a moment I have seen the immensity of
your creation in my life--creation through many a death from
world to world.
I weep at my unworthiness when I see my life in the hands of the
unmeaning hours,--but when I see it in your hands I know it is
too precious to be squandered among shadows.
LI
I know that at the dim end of some day the sun will bid me its
farewell.
Shepherds will play their pipes beneath the banyan trees, and
cattle graze on the slope by the river, while my days will pass
into the dark.
This is my prayer, that I may know before I leave why the earth
called me to her arms.
Why her night's silence spoke to me of stars, and her daylight
kissed my thoughts into flower.
Before I go may I linger over my last refrain, completing its
music, may the lamp be lit to see your face and the wreath woven
to crown you.
LII
What music is that in whose measure the world is rocked?
We laugh when it beats upon the crest of life, we shrink in
terror when it returns into the dark.
But the play is the same that comes and goes with the rhythm of
the endless music.
You hide your treasure in the palm of your hand, and we cry that
we are robbed.
But open and shut your palm as you will, the gain and the loss
are the same.
At the game you play with your own self you lose and win at once.
LIII
I have kissed this world with my eyes and my limbs; I have wrapt
it within my heart in numberless folds; I have flooded its days
and nights with thoughts till the world and my life have grown
one,--and I love my life because I love the light of the sky so
enwoven with me.
If to leave this world be as real as to love it--then there must
be a meaning in the meeting and the parting of life.
If that love were deceived in death, then the canker of this
deceit would eat into all things, and the stars would shrivel and
grow black.
LIV
The Cloud said to me, "I vanish"; the Night said, "I plunge into
the fiery dawn."
The Pain said, "I remain in deep silence as his footprint."
"I die into the fulness," said my life to me.
The Earth said, "My lights kiss your thoughts every moment."
"The days pass," Love said, "but I wait for you."
Death said, "I ply the boat of your life across the sea."
LV
Tulsidas, the poet, was wandering, deep in thought, by the
Ganges, in that lonely spot where they burn their dead.
He found a woman sitting at the feet of the corpse of her dead
husband, gaily dressed as for a wedding.
She rose as she saw him, bowed to him, and said, "Permit me,
Master, with your blessing, to follow my husband to heaven."
"Why such hurry, my daughter?" asked Tulsidas. "Is not this
earth also His who made heaven?"
"For heaven I do not long," said the woman. "I want my husband."
Tulsidas smiled and said to her, "Go back to your home, my child.
Before the month is over you will find your husband."
The woman went back with glad hope. Tulsidas came to her every
day and gave her high thoughts to think, till her heart was
filled to the brim with divine love.
When the month was scarcely over, her neighbours came to her,
asking, "Woman, have you found your husband?"
The widow smiled and said, "I have."
Eagerly they asked, "Where is he?"
"In my heart is my lord, one with me," said the woman.
LVI
You came for a moment to my side and touched me with the great
mystery of the woman that there is in the heart of creation.
She who is ever returning to God his own outflowing of
sweetness; she is the ever fresh beauty and youth in nature; she
dances in the bubbling streams and sings in the morning light;
she with heaving waves suckles the thirsty earth; in her the
Eternal One breaks in two in a joy that no longer may contain
itself, and overflows in the pain of love.
LVII
Who is she who dwells in my heart, the woman forlorn for ever?
I wooed her and I failed to win her. I decked her with wreaths
and sang in her praise.
A smile shone in her face for a moment, then it faded.
"I have no joy in thee," she cried, the woman in sorrow.
I bought her jewelled anklets and fanned her with a fan
gem-studded; I made her a bed on a bedstead of gold.
There flickered a gleam of gladness in her eyes, then it died.
"I have no joy in these," she cried, the woman in sorrow.
I seated her upon a car of triumph and drove her from end to end
of the earth.
Conquered hearts bowed down at her feet, and shouts of applause
rang in the sky.
Pride shone in her eyes for a moment, then it was dimmed in
tears.
"I have no joy in conquest," she cried, the woman in sorrow.
I asked her, "Tell me whom do you seek?"
She only said, "I wait for him of the unknown name."
Days pass by and she cries, "When will my beloved come whom I
know not, and be known to me for ever?"
LVIII
Yours is the light that breaks forth from the dark, and the good
that sprouts from the cleft heart of strife.
Yours is the house that opens upon the world, and the love that
calls to the battlefield.
Yours is the gift that still is a gain when everything is a loss,
and the life that flows through the caverns of death.
Yours is the heaven that lies in the common dust, and you are
there for me, you are there for all.
LIX
When the weariness of the road is upon me, and the thirst of the
sultry day; when the ghostly hours of the dusk throw their
shadows across my life, then I cry not for your voice only, my
friend, but for your touch.
There is an anguish in my heart for the burden of its riches not
given to you.
Put out your hand through the night, let me hold it and fill it
and keep it; let me feel its touch along the lengthening stretch
of my loneliness.
LX
The odour cries in the bud, "Ah me, the day departs, the happy
day of spring, and I am a prisoner in petals!"
Do not lose heart, timid thing! Your bonds will burst, the bud
will open into flower, and when you die in the fulness of life,
even then the spring will live on.
The odour pants and flutters within the bud, crying, "Ah me, the
hours pass by, yet I do not know where I go, or what it is I
seek!"
Do not lose heart, timid thing! The spring breeze has overheard
your desire, the day will not end before you have fulfilled your
being.
Dark is the future to her, and the odour cries in despair, "Ah
me, through whose fault is my life so unmeaning?
"Who can tell me, why I am at all?" Do not lose heart, timid
thing! The perfect dawn is near when you will mingle your life
with all life and know at last your purpose.
LXI
She is still a child, my lord.
She runs about your palace and plays, and tries to make of you a
plaything as well.
She heeds not when her hair tumbles down and her careless garment
drags in the dust.
She falls asleep when you speak to her and answers not--and the
flower you give her in the morning slips to the dust from her
hands.
When the storm bursts and darkness is over the sky she is
sleepless; her dolls lie scattered on the earth and she clings to
you in terror.
She is afraid that she may fail in service to you.
But with a smile you watch her at her game.
You know her.
The child sitting in the dust is your destined bride; her play
will be stilled and deepened into love.
LXII
"What is there but the sky, O Sun, that can hold thine image?"
"I dream of thee, but to serve thee I can never hope," the
dewdrop wept and said, "I am too small to take thee unto me,
great lord, and my life is all tears."
"I illumine the limitless sky, yet I can yield myself up to a
tiny drop of dew," thus the Sun said; "I shall become but a
sparkle of light and fill you, and your little life will be a
laughing orb."
LXIII
Not for me is the love that knows no restraint, but like the
foaming wine that having burst its vessel in a moment would run
to waste.
Send me the love which is cool and pure like your rain that
blesses the thirsty earth and fills the homely earthen jars.
Send me the love that would soak down into the centre of being,
and from there would spread like the unseen sap through the
branching tree of life, giving birth to fruits and flowers.
Send me the love that keeps the heart still with the fulness of
peace.
LXIV
The sun had set on the western margin of the river among the
tangle of the forest.
The hermit boys had brought the cattle home, and sat round the
fire to listen to the master, Guatama, when a strange boy came,
and greeted him with fruits and flowers, and, bowing low at his
feet, spoke in a bird-like voice--"Lord, I have come to thee to
be taken into the path of the supreme Truth.
"My name is Satyakâma."
"Blessings be on thy head," said the master.
"Of what clan art thou, my child? It is only fitting for a
Brahmin to aspire to the highest wisdom."
"Master," answered the boy, "I know not of what clan I am. I
shall go and ask my mother."
Thus saying, Satyakâma took leave, and wading across the
shallow stream, came back to his mother's hut, which stood at the
end of the sandy waste at the edge of the sleeping village.
The lamp burnt dimly in the room, and the mother stood at the
door in the dark waiting for her son's return.
She clasped him to her bosom, kissed him on his hair, and asked
him of his errand to the master.
"What is the name of my father, dear mother?" asked the boy.
"It is only fitting for a Brahmin to aspire to the highest
wisdom, said Lord Guatama to me."
The woman lowered her eyes, and spoke in a whisper.
"In my youth I was poor and had many masters. Thou didst come to
thy mother Jabâlâ's arms, my darling, who had no husband."
The early rays of the sun glistened on the tree-tops of the
forest hermitage.
The students, with their tangled hair still wet with their
morning bath, sat under the ancient tree, before the master.
There came Satyakâma.
He bowed low at the feet of the sage, and stood silent.
"Tell me," the great teacher asked him, "of what clan art thou?"
"My lord," he answered, "I know it not. My mother said when I
asked her, 'I had served many masters in my youth, and thou hadst
come to thy mother Jabâlâ's arms, who had no husband.'"
There rose a murmur like the angry hum of bees disturbed in their
hive; and the students muttered at the shameless insolence of
that outcast.
Master Guatama rose from his seat, stretched out his arms, took
the boy to his bosom, and said, "Best of all Brahmins art thou,
my child. Thou hast the noblest heritage of truth."
LXV
May be there is one house in this city where the gate opens for
ever this morning at the touch of the sunrise, where the errand
of the light is fulfilled.
The flowers have opened in hedges and gardens, and may be there
is one heart that has found in them this morning the gift that
has been on its voyage from endless time.
LXVI
Listen, my heart, in his flute is the music of the smell of wild
flowers, of the glistening leaves and gleaming water, of shadows
resonant with bees' wings.
The flute steals his smile from my friend's lips and spreads it
over my life.
LXVII
You always stand alone beyond the stream of my songs.
The waves of my tunes wash your feet but I know not how to reach
them.
This play of mine with you is a play from afar.
It is the pain of separation that melts into melody through my
flute.
I wait for the time when your boat crosses over to my shore and
you take my flute into your own hands.
LXVIII
Suddenly the window of my heart flew open this morning, the
window that looks out on your heart.
I wondered to see that the name by which you know me is written
in April leaves and flowers, and I sat silent.
The curtain was blown away for a moment between my songs and
yours.
I found that your morning light was full of my own mute songs
unsung; I thought that I would learn them at your feet--and I sat
silent.
LXIX
You were in the centre of my heart, therefore when my heart
wandered she never found you; you hid yourself from my loves and
hopes till the last, for you were always in them.
You were the inmost joy in the play of my youth, and when I was
too busy with the play the joy was passed by.
You sang to me in the ecstasies of my life and I forgot to sing
to you.
LXX
When you hold your lamp in the sky it throws its light on my face
and its shadow falls over you.
When I hold the lamp of love in my heart its light falls on you
and I am left standing behind in the shadow.
LXXI
O the waves, the sky-devouring waves, glistening with light,
dancing with life, the waves of eddying joy, rushing for ever.
The stars rock upon them, thoughts of every tint are cast up out
of the deep and scattered on the beach of life.
Birth and death rise and fall with their rhythm, and the sea-gull
of my heart spreads its wings crying in delight.
LXXII
The joy ran from all the world to build my body.
The lights of the skies kissed and kissed her till she woke.
Flowers of hurrying summers sighed in her breath and voices of
winds and water sang in her movements.
The passion of the tide of colours in clouds and in forests
flowed into her life, and the music of all things caressed her
limbs into shape.
She is my bride,--she has lighted her lamp in my house.
LXXIII
The spring with its leaves and flowers has come into my body.
The bees hum there the morning long, and the winds idly play with
the shadows.
A sweet fountain springs up from the heart of my heart.
My eyes are washed with delight like the dew-bathed morning, and
life is quivering in all my limbs like the sounding strings of
the lute.
Are you wandering alone by the shore of my life, where the tide
is in flood, O lover of my endless days?
Are my dreams flitting round you like the moths with their
many-coloured wings?
And are those your songs that are echoing in the dark eaves of my
being?
Who but you can hear the hum of the crowded hours that sounds in
my veins to-day, the glad steps that dance in my breast, the
clamour of the restless life beating its wings in my body?
LXXIV
My bonds are cut, my debts are paid, my door has been opened, I
go everywhere.
They crouch in their corner and weave their web of pale hours,
they count their coins sitting in the dust and call me back.
But my sword is forged, my armour is put on, my horse is eager to
run.
I shall win my kingdom.
LXXV
It was only the other day that I came to your earth, naked and
nameless, with a wailing cry.
To-day my voice is glad, while you, my lord, stand aside to make
room that I may fill my life.
Even when I bring you my songs for an offering I have the secret
hope that men will come and love me for them.
You love to discover that I love this world where you have
brought me.
LXXVI
Timidly I cowered in the shadow of safety, but now, when the
surge of joy carries my heart upon its crest, my heart clings to
the cruel rock of its trouble.
I sat alone in a corner of my house thinking it too narrow for
any guest, but now when its door is flung open by an unbidden joy
I find there is room for thee and for all the world.
I walked upon tiptoe, careful of my person, perfumed, and
adorned--but now when a glad whirlwind has overthrown me in the
dust I laugh and roll on the earth at thy feet like a child.
LXXVII
The world is yours at once and for ever.
And because you have no want, my king, you have no pleasure in
your wealth.
It is as though it were naught. Therefore through slow time you
give me what is yours, and ceaselessly win your kingdom in me.
Day after day you buy your sunrise from my heart, and you find
your love carven into the image of my life.
LXXVIII
To the birds you gave songs, the birds gave you songs in return.
You gave me only voice, yet asked for more, and I sing.
You made your winds light and they are fleet in their service.
You burdened my hands that I myself may lighten them, and at
last, gain unburdened freedom for your service.
You created your Earth filling its shadows with fragments of
light.
There you paused; you left me empty-handed in the dust to create
your heaven.
To all things else you give; from me you ask.
The harvest of my life ripens in the sun and the shower till I
reap more than you sowed, gladdening your heart, O Master of the
golden granary.
LXXIX
Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless
in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to
conquer it.
Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield but to my own
strength.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved but hope for the
patience to win my freedom.
Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my
success alone; but let me find the grasp of your hand in my
failure.
LXXX
You did not know yourself when you dwelt alone, and there was no
crying of an errand when the wind ran from the hither to the
farther shore.
I came and you woke, and the skies blossomed with lights.
You made me open in many flowers; rocked me in the cradles of
many forms; hid me in death and found me again in life.
I came and your heart heaved; pain came to you and joy.
You touched me and tingled into love.
But in my eyes there is a film of shame and in my breast a
flicker of fear; my face is veiled and I weep when I cannot see
you.
Yet I know the endless thirst in your heart for sight of me, the
thirst that cries at my door in the repeated knockings of
sunrise.
LXXXI
You, in your timeless watch, listen to my approaching steps while
your gladness gathers in the morning twilight and breaks in the
burst of light.
The nearer I draw to you the deeper grows the fervour in the
dance of the sea.
Your world is a branching spray of light filling your hands, but
your heaven is in my secret heart; it slowly opens its buds in
shy love.
LXXXII
I will utter your name, sitting alone among the shadows of my
silent thoughts.
I will utter it without words, I will utter it without purpose.
For I am like a child that calls its mother an hundred times,
glad that it can say "Mother."
LXXXIII
I
I feel that all the stars shine in me. The world breaks into my
life like a flood.
The flowers blossom in my body. All the youthfulness of land and
water smokes like an incense in my heart; and the breath of all
things plays on my thoughts as on a flute.
II
When the world sleeps I come to your door.
The stars are silent, and I am afraid to sing.
I wait and watch, till your shadow passes by the balcony of night
and I return with a full heart.
Then in the morning I sing by the roadside;