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.
O troupe of little vagrants of the
world, leave your footprints in my words.
The world puts off its mask of
vastness to its lover. It becomes small as one song, as one kiss of the
eternal.
It is the tears of the earth that
keep her smiles in bloom.
The mighty desert is burning for the
love of a blade of grass who shakes her head and laughs and flies away.
If you shed tears when you miss the
sun, you also miss the stars.
The sands in your way beg for your
song and your movement, dancing water. Will you carry the burden of their
lameness?
Her wistful face haunts my dreams
like the rain at night.
Once we dreamt that we were
strangers. We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.
Sorrow is hushed into peace in my
heart like the evening among the silent trees.
Some unseen fingers, like idle
breeze, are playing upon my heart the music of the ripples.
"What language is thine, O
sea?"
"The
language of eternal question."
"What language is thy answer, O
sky?
"The
language of eternal silence."
Listen, my heart, to the whispers of
the world with which it makes love to you.
The mystery of creation is like the
darkness of night--it is great. Delusions of knowledge are like the fog of the
morning.
Do not seat your love upon a
precipice because it is high.
I sit at my window this morning
where the world like a passer-by stops for a moment, nods to me and goes.
These little thoughts are the rustle
of leaves; they have their whisper of joy in my mind.
What you are you do not see, what
you see is your shadow.
My wishes are fools, they shout
across thy songs, my Master. Let me but listen.
I cannot choose the best.
The best chooses me.
They throw their shadows before them
who carry their lantern on their back.
That I exist is a perpetual surprise
which is life.
"We, the rustling leaves, have
a voice that answers the storms, but who are you so silent?" "I am a
mere flower."
Rest belongs to the work as the
eyelids to the eyes.
Man is a born child, his power is
the power of growth.
God expects answers for the flowers
he sends us, not for the sun and the earth.
The light that plays, like a naked
child, among the green leaves happily knows not that man can lie.
O Beauty, find thyself in love, not
in the flattery of thy mirror.
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."
"Moon, for what do you
wait?"
"To salute the sun for whom I
must make way."
The trees come up to my window like
the yearning voice of the dumb earth.
His own mornings are new surprises
to God.
Life finds its wealth by the claims
of the world, and its worth by the claims of love.
The dry river-bed finds no thanks
for its past.
The bird wishes it were a cloud. The
cloud wishes it were a bird.
The waterfall sings, "I find my
song, when I find my freedom."
I cannot tell why this heart
languishes in silence.
It is for small needs it never asks, or knows or remembers.
Woman, when you move about in your
household service your limbs sing like a hill stream among its pebbles.
The sun goes to cross the Western
sea, leaving its last salutation to the East.
Do not blame your food because you
have no appetite.
The trees, like the longings of the
earth, stand a-tiptoe to peep at the heaven.
You smiled and talked to me of
nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.
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.
The world rushes on over the strings
of the lingering heart making the music of sadness.
He has made his weapons his gods.
When his weapons win he is defeated himself.
God finds himself by creating.
Shadow, with her veil drawn, follows
Light in secret meekness, with her silent steps of love.
The stars are not afraid to appear
like fireflies.
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.
The mind, sharp but not broad,
sticks at every point but does not move.
Your idol is shattered in the dust
to prove that God's dust is greater than your idol.
Man does not reveal himself in his
history, he struggles up through it.
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."
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.
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.
Life is given to us, we earn it by
giving it.
We come nearest to the great when we
are great in humility.
The sparrow is sorry for the peacock
at the burden of its tail.
Never be afraid of the moments--thus
sings the voice of the everlasting.
The hurricane seeks the shortest
road by the no-road, and suddenly ends its search in the Nowhere.
Take my wine in my own cup, friend.
It loses its wreath of foam when poured into that of others.
The Perfect decks itself in beauty
for the love of the Imperfect.
God says to man, "I heal you
therefore I hurt, love you therefore punish."
Thank the flame for its light, but
do not forget the lampholder standing in the shade with constancy of patience.
Tiny grass, your steps are small,
but you possess the earth under your tread.
The infant flower opens its bud and
cries, "Dear World, please do not fade."
God grows weary of great kingdoms,
but never of little flowers.
Wrong cannot afford defeat but Right
can.
"I give my whole water in
joy," sings the waterfall, "though little of it is enough for the
thirsty."
Where is the fountain that throws up
these flowers in a ceaseless outbreak of ecstasy?
The woodcutter's axe begged for its
handle from the tree. The tree gave it.
In my solitude of heart I feel the
sigh of this widowed evening veiled with mist and rain.
Chastity is a wealth that comes from
abundance of love.
The mist, like love, plays upon the
heart of the hills and brings out surprises of beauty.
We read the world wrong and say that
it deceives us.
The poet wind is out over the sea
and the forest to seek his own voice.
Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
The grass seeks her crowd in the
earth.
The tree seeks his solitude of the sky.
Man barricades against himself.
Your voice, my friend, wanders in my
heart, like the muffled sound of the sea among these listening pines.
What is this unseen flame of
darkness whose sparks are the stars?
Let life be beautiful like summer
flowers and death like autumn leaves.
He who wants to do good knocks at
the gate; he who loves finds the gate open.
In death the many becomes one; in
life the one becomes many. Religion will be one when God is dead.
The artist is the lover of Nature,
therefore he is her slave and her master.
"How far are you from me, O
Fruit?" "I am hidden in your heart, O Flower."
This longing is for the one who is
felt in the dark, but not seen in the day.
"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.
The scabbard is content to be dull
when it protects the keenness of the sword.
In darkness the One appears as
uniform; in the light the One appears as manifold.
The great earth makes herself
hospitable with the help of the grass.
The birth and death of the leaves
are the rapid whirls of the eddy whose wider circles move slowly among stars.
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.
The mist is like the earth's desire.
It hides the sun for whom she cries.
Be still, my heart, these great
trees are prayers.
The noise of the moment scoffs at
the music of the Eternal.
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.
The sadness of my soul is her
bride's veil. It waits to be lifted in the night.
Death's stamp gives value to the
coin of life; making it possible to buy with life what is truly precious.
The cloud stood humbly in a corner
of the sky. The morning crowned it with splendour.
The dust receives insult and in
return offers her flowers.
Do not linger to gather flowers to
keep them, but walk on, for flowers will keep themselves blooming all your way.
Roots are the branches down in the
earth. Branches are roots in the air.
The music of the far-away summer
flutters around the Autumn seeking its former nest.
Do not insult your friend by lending
him merits from your own pocket.
The touch of the nameless days
clings to my heart like mosses round the old tree.
The echo mocks her origin to prove
she is the original.
God is ashamed when the prosperous
boasts of His special favour.
I cast my own shadow upon my path,
because I have a lamp that has not been lighted.
Man goes into the noisy crowd to
drown his own clamour of silence.
That which ends in exhaustion is
death, but the perfect ending is in the endless.
The sun has his simple robe of
light. The clouds are decked with gorgeousness.
The hills are like shouts of
children who raise their arms, trying to catch stars.
The road is lonely in its crowd for
it is not loved.
The power that boasts of its
mischiefs is laughed at by the yellow leaves that fall, and clouds that pass
by.
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.
The grass-blade is worth of the
great world where it grows.
Dream is a wife who must talk.
Sleep is a husband who silently suffers.
The night kisses the fading day
whispering to his ear, "I am death, your mother. I am to give you fresh
birth."
I feel, thy beauty, dark night, like
that of the loved woman when she has put out the lamp.
I carry in my world that flourishes
the worlds that have failed.
Dear friend, I feel the silence of
your great thoughts of may a deepening eventide on this beach when I listen to
these waves.
The bird thinks it is an act of
kindness to give the fish a lift in the air.
"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."
The Great is a born child; when he
dies he gives his great childhood to the world.
Not hammerstrokes, but dance of the
water sings the pebbles into perfection.
Bees sip honey from flowers and hum
their thanks when they leave.
The gaudy butterfly is sure that the flowers owe thanks to him.
To be outspoken is easy when you do
not wait to speak the complete truth.
Asks the Possible to the Impossible,
"Where is your dwelling place?"
"In the dreams of the
impotent," comes the answer.
If you shut your door to all errors
truth will be shut out.
I hear some rustle of things behind
my sadness of heart,--I cannot see them.
Leisure in its activity is work.
The stillness of the sea stirs in waves.
The leaf becomes flower when it
loves.
The flower becomes fruit when it worships.
The roots below the earth claim no
rewards for making the branches fruitful.
This rainy evening the wind is
restless.
I look at the swaying branches and ponder over the greatness of all things.
Storm of midnight, like a giant
child awakened in the untimely dark, has begun to play and shout.
Thou raisest thy waves vainly to
follow thy lover. O sea, thou lonely bride of the storm.
"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.
Time is the wealth of change, but
the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth.
Truth in her dress finds facts too
tight.
In fiction she moves with ease.
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.
Let me think that there is one among
those stars that guides my life through the dark unknown.
Woman, with the grace of your
fingers you touched my things and order came out like music.
One sad voice has its nest among the
ruins of the years. It sings to me in the night,--"I loved you."
The flaming fire warns me off by its
own glow.
Save me from the dying embers hidden under ashes.
I have my stars in the sky,
But oh for my little lamp unlit in my house.
The dust of the dead words clings to
thee.
Wash thy soul with silence.
Gaps are left in life through which
comes the sad music of death.
The world has opened its heart of
light in the morning.
Come out, my heart, with thy love to meet it.
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.
God's great power is in the gentle
breeze, not in the storm.
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.
"Who is there to take up my
duties?" asked the setting sun.
"I shall do what I can, my
Master," said the earthen lamp.
By plucking her petals you do not
gather the beauty of the flower.
Silence will carry your voice like
the nest that holds the sleeping birds.
The Great walks with the Small
without fear.
The Middling keeps aloof.
The night opens the flowers in
secret and allows the day to get thanks.
Power takes as ingratitude the
writhings of its victims.
When we rejoice in our fulness, then
we can part with our fruits with joy.
The raindrops kissed the earth and
whispered,--"We are thy homesick children, mother, come back to thee from
the heaven."
The cobweb pretends to catch
dew-drops and catches flies.
Love! when you come with the burning
lamp of pain in your hand, I can see your face and know you as bliss.
"The learned say that your
lights will one day be no more." said the firefly to the stars. The stars
made no answer.
In the dusk of the evening the bird
of some early dawn comes to the nest of my silence.
Thoughts pass in my mind like flocks
of ducks in the sky.
I hear the voice of their wings.
The canal loves to think that rivers
exist solely to supply it with water.
The world has kissed my soul with
its pain, asking for its return in songs.
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?
Thought feeds itself with its own words
and grows.
I have dipped the vessel of my heart
into this silent hour; it has filled with love.
Either you have work or you have
not.
When you have to say, "Let us do something," then begins mischief.
The sunflower blushed to own the nameless
flower as her kin.
The sun rose and smiled on it, saying, "Are you well, my darling?"
"Who drives me forward like
fate?" "The Myself striding on my back."
The clouds fill the watercups of the
river, hiding themselves in the distant hills.
I spill water from my water jar as I
walk on my way,
Very little remains for my home.
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.
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.
It is the little things that I leave
behind for my loved ones,-- great things are for everyone.
Woman, thou hast encircled the
world's heart with the depth of thy tears as the sea has the earth.
The sunshine greets me with a smile.
The rain, his sad sister, talks to my heart.
My flower of the day dropped its
petals forgotten. In the evening it ripens into a golden fruit of memory.
I am like the road in the night
listening to the footfalls of its memories in silence.
The evening sky to me is like a
window, and a lighted lamp, and a waiting behind it.
He who is too busy doing good finds
no time to be good.
I am the autumn cloud, empty of
rain, see my fulness in the field of ripened rice.
They hated and killed and men
praised them.
But God in shame hastens to hide its memory under the green grass.
Toes are the fingers that have
forsaken their past.
Darkness travels towards light, but
blindness towards death.
The pet dog suspects the universe
for scheming to take its place.
Sit still my heart, do not raise
your dust.
Let the world find its way to you.
The bow whispers to the arrow before
it speeds forth--"Your freedom is mine."
Woman, in your laughter you have the
music of the fountain of life.
A mind all logic is like a knife all
blade.
It makes the hand bleed that uses it.
God loves man's lamp lights better
than his own great stars.
This world is the world of wild
storms kept tame with the music of beauty.
"My heart is like the golden
casket of thy kiss," said the sunset cloud to the sun.
By touching you may kill, by keeping
away you may possess.
The cricket's chirp and the patter
of rain come to me through the dark, like the rustle of dreams from my past
youth.
"I have lost my dewdrop,"
cries the flower to the morning sky that has lost all its stars.
The burning log bursts in flame and
cries,--"This is my flower, my death."
The wasp thinks that the honey-hive
of the neighbouring bees is too small.
His neighbours ask him to build one still smaller.
"I cannot keep your
waves," says the bank to the river. "Let me keep your footprints in
my heart."
The day, with the noise of this
little earth, drowns the silence of all worlds.
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.
When the sun goes down to the West,
the East of his morning stands before him in silence.
Let me not put myself wrongly to my
world and set it against me.
Praise shames me, for I secretly beg
for it.
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.
Maiden, your simplicity, like the
blueness of the lake, reveals your depth of truth.
The best does not come alone. It
comes with the company of the all.
God's right hand is gentle, but
terrible is his left hand.
My evening came among the alien
trees and spoke in a language which my morning stars did not know.
Night's darkness is a bag that
bursts with the gold of the dawn.
Our desire lends the colours of the
rainbow to the mere mists and vapours of life.
God waits to win back his own
flowers as gifts from man's hands.
My sad thoughts tease me asking me
their own names.
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.
My heart has spread its sails to the
idle winds for the shadowy island of Anywhere.
Men are cruel, but Man is kind.
Make me thy cup and let my fulness
be for thee and for thine.
The storm is like the cry of some
god in pain whose love the earth refuses.
The world does not leak because
death is not a crack.
Life has become richer by the love
that has been lost.
My friend, your great heart shone
with the sunrise of the East like the snowy summit of a lonely hill in the
dawn.
The fountain of death makes the
still water of life play.
Those who have everything but thee,
my God, laugh at those who have nothing but thyself.
The movement of life has its rest in
its own music.
Kicks only raise dust and not crops
from the earth.
Our names are the light that glows
on the sea waves at night and then dies without leaving its signature.
Let him only see the thorns who has
eyes to see the rose.
Set bird's wings with gold and it
will never again soar in the sky.
The same lotus of our clime blooms
here in the alien water with the same sweetness, under another name.
In heart's perspective the distance
looms large.
The moon has her light all over the
sky, her dark spots to herself.
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.
Smoke boasts to the sky, and Ashes
to the earth, that they are brothers to the fire.
The raindrop whispered to the
jasmine, "Keep me in your heart for ever." The jasmine sighed,
"Alas," and dropped to the ground.
Timid thoughts, do not be afraid of
me.
I am a poet.
The dim silence of my mind seems
filled with crickets' chirp--the grey twilight of sound.
Rockets, your insult to the stars
follows yourself back to the earth.
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.
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.
The stream of truth flows through
its channels of mistakes.
My heart is homesick to-day for the
one sweet hour across the sea of time.
The bird-song is the echo of the
morning light back from the earth.
"Are you too proud to kiss
me?" the morning light asks the buttercup.
"How may I sing to thee and
worship, O Sun?" asked the little flower.
"By the simple silence of thy
purity," answered the sun.
Man is worse than an animal when he
is an animal.
Dark clouds become heaven's flowers
when kissed by light.
Let not the sword-blade mock its
handle for being blunt.
The night's silence, like a deep
lamp, is burning with the light of its milky way.
Around the sunny island of Life
swells day and night death's limitless song of the sea.
Is not this mountain like a flower,
with its petals of hills, drinking the sunlight?
The real with its meaning read wrong
and emphasis misplaced is the unreal.
Find your beauty, my heart, from the
world's movement, like the boat that has the grace of the wind and the water.
The eyes are not proud of their
sight but of their eyeglasses.
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.
The false can never grow into truth
by growing in power.
My heart, with its lapping waves of
song, longs to caress this green world of the sunny day.
Wayside grass, love the star, then
your dreams will come out in flowers.
Let your music, like a sword, pierce
the noise of the market to its heart.
The trembling leaves of this tree
touch my heart like the fingers of an infant child.
This sadness of my soul is her
bride's veil.
It waits to be lifted in the night.
The little flower lies in the dust.
It sought the path of the butterfly.
I am in the world of the roads. The
night comes. Open thy gate, thou world of the home.
I have sung the songs of thy day. In
the evening let me carry thy lamp through the stormy path.
I do not ask thee into the house.
Come into my infinite loneliness, my Lover.
Death belongs to life as birth does.
The walk is in the raising of the foot as in the laying of it down.
I have learnt the simple meaning of
thy whispers in flowers and sunshine--teach me to know thy words in pain and
death.
The night's flower was late when the
morning kissed her, she shivered and sighed and dropped to the ground.
Through the sadness of all things I
hear the crooning of the Eternal Mother.
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.
Let my thoughts come to you, when I
am gone, like the afterglow of sunset at the margin of starry silence.
Light in my heart the evening star
of rest and then let the night whisper to me of love.
I am a child in the dark.
I stretch my hands through the coverlet of night for thee, Mother.
The day of work is done. Hide my
face in your arms, Mother. Let me dream.
The lamp of meeting burns long; it
goes out in a moment at the parting.
One word keep for me in thy silence,
O World, when I am dead, "I have loved."
We live in this world when we love
it.
Let the dead have the immortality of
fame, but the living the immortality of love.
I have seen thee as the
half-awakened child sees his mother in the dusk of the dawn and then smiles and
sleeps again.
I shall die again and again to know
that life is inexhaustible.
While I was passing with the crowd
in the road I saw thy smile from the balcony and I sang and forgot all noise.
Love is life in its fulness like the
cup with its wine.
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.
Lead me in the centre of thy silence
to fill my heart with songs.
Let them live who choose in their
own hissing world of fireworks.
My heart longs for thy stars, my God.
Love's pain sang round my life like
the unplumbed sea, and love's joy sang like birds in its flowering groves.
Put out the lamp when thou wishest.
I shall know thy darkness and shall love it.
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.
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."
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.
Truth raises against itself the
storm that scatters its seeds broadcast.
The storm of the last night has
crowned this morning with golden peace.
Truth seems to come with its final
word; and the final word gives birth to its next.
Blessed is he whose fame does not
outshine his truth.
Sweetness of thy name fills my heart
when I forget mine--like thy morning sun when the mist is melted.
The silent night has the beauty of
the mother and the clamorous day of the child.
The world loved man when he smiled.
The world became afraid of him when he laughed.
God waits for man to regain his
childhood in wisdom.
Let me feel this world as thy love
taking form, then my love will help it.
Thy sunshine smiles upon the winter
days of my heart, never doubting of its spring flowers.
God kisses the finite in his love
and man the infinite.
Thou crossest desert lands of barren
years to reach the moment of fulfilment.
God's silence ripens man's thoughts
into speech.
Thou wilt find, Eternal Traveller,
marks of thy footsteps across my songs.
Let me not shame thee, Father, who
displayest thy glory in thy children.
Cheerless is the day, the light
under frowning clouds is like a punished child with traces of tears on its pale
cheeks, and the cry of the wind is like the cry of a wounded world. But I know
I am travelling to meet my Friend.
To-night there is a stir among the
palm leaves, a swell in the sea, Full Moon, like the heart throb of the world.
From what unknown sky hast thou carried in thy silence the aching secret of
love?
I dream of a star, an island of
light, where I shall be born and in the depth of its quickening leisure my life
will ripen its works like the ricefield in the autumn sun.
The smell of the wet earth in the
rain rises like a great chant of praise from the voiceless multitude of the
insignificant.
That love can ever lose is a fact
that we cannot accept as truth.
We shall know some day that death
can never rob us of that which our soul has gained, for her gains are one with
herself.
God comes to me in the dusk of my
evening with the flowers from my past kept fresh in his basket.
When all the strings of my life will
be tuned, my Master, then at every touch of thine will come out the music of
love.
Let me live truly, my Lord, so that
death to me become true.
Man's history is waiting in patience
for the triumph of the insulted man.
I feel thy gaze upon my heart this
moment like the sunny silence of the morning upon the lonely field whose
harvest is over.
I long for the Island of Songs
across this heaving Sea of Shouts.
The prelude of the night is
commenced in the music of the sunset, in its solemn hymn to the ineffable dark.
I have scaled the peak and found no
shelter in fame's bleak and barren height. Lead me, my Guide, before the light
fades, into the valley of quiet where life's harvest mellows into golden
wisdom.
Things look phantastic in this
dimness of the dusk--the spires whose bases are lost in the dark and tree tops
like blots of ink. I shall wait for the morning and wake up to see thy city in
the light.
I have suffered and despaired and
known death and I am glad that I am in this great world.
There are tracts in my life that are
bare and silent. They are the open spaces where my busy days had their light
and air.
Release me from my unfulfilled past
clinging to me from behind making death difficult.
Let this be my last word, that I
trust in thy love.
