English

Once they ploughed the fruitful field,
Helped the reaper gain his yield,
Came to eve with sweet content,
Browsing when the day was spent.
Now they lie with mangled hide,
Fallen in the carnage tide.

What to them the sounding phrase
Which explains the bloody ways?
Honour, place or racial stem,
Slav or Teuton, what to them?
Torn and dead or death denied,
Fallen in the carnage tide.

Now they wage the battle hot,
Plunging under shell and shot,
Charging in the cannon's breath
Bearing dealers of the death,

I wandered out this moonlight night,
I think that some one hurried by,
But ah, the clouds obscured the light …
I only heard a wind-blown sigh!

Confuse me not with impious things;
But wait for the appointed hour
When you shall see your vanished flower
Reborn resplendent in my wings!

Thy love permits not my complaint to rise,
It reaches to my lips, and then it dies.
Now, helpless heart, I cannot aid thee more,
And thus for thee God's pity must implore.

Seest thou not how much disgrace and pain
The scornful world has heaped upon us twain,
On thee for beauty and the sins thereof,
On me for this infirmity of love.

Oft-times she will not speak to me at all,
Or if she deign to speak, the words that fall
Cold from her haughty lips are words of blame:—
—I know thee not—I have not heard thy name!

I here salute the sturdy sons of toil
Whom from my soul I honour and revere.
To whose strong hands earth renders up her spoil,
From mine and factory, to golden ear.
From earth's dark womb e'en to her smiling breast,
You win her fruits, and her rich tribute bring,
From ocean throbbing with her deep unrest,
To virgin forests which with your axes ring.
All labour has my unalloy'd respect,
In town or country—city as in field.
In labourers I see The Great Elect.
To ye the gates of Paradise will yield!

I hear great master in your verse sonore,
That magic conch-shell through whose lips of rose
Now melting melody now war-note flows,
The sea-sibilants hiss, her tigers roar.
I see a sea-god rising as of yore,
His shoulders blushing from fierce Ocean's blows
Whilst sharp-kissing waves reluctantly unclose,
Release a lover whom most they adore.
So impov'rish'd is this age pleth'ric wi'pelf.
So petty, sordid, money-grub, and mean,
So centr'd, focuss'd, coil'd round and up in self,
So towards the cash-box do all efforts lean,

Muse, you have opened like a flower.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Long ago I knew that brown integument,
Like a dead husk, had dormant life within it,
And waited till a first white point appeared
Which shot into a naked stiff pale spike
That grew.
I knew this was not all:
Nothing I said as greener you grew and taller,
But dreamed alone of the day when your bud would unsheathe,
And silently swell, and at last your crown would break
Filling the air with clouds of colour and fragrance,
Radiant waves, odours of immortality.

Without Hari whom hast thou for friend?
Kinsfolk companions court thee for selfish ends, none has any love of thee.
From the Lord thou hast turned thy face and on them that are false set thine affections.
Thou with thine own eyes hast seen it: joy and grief now come now go.
In good fortune all surround thee: in trouble they but added to thy woe.
With fists closed tight man entered life: with open palms he goes empty away.
For the sake of such thou hast played divers parts and danced like a monkey to varied tunes.

O Soul, practise that meditation.
Whereby thy million pains are ended, all sins done away.
Arouse thee, wake and search: open thine eyes and see thyself.
When the crow becomes a swan, tis by the power of the Name.
Keep the soul steadfast in meditation, the pains of the three qualities will be loosed.
Tell the beads of thought within the heart, thus every grief will flee away.
Perfect Bhagti none can fathom, wondrous, pure and free from guile.
O Charan Das, Sukdeva has said, such make their abode in the Eternal City.

When all within is mire and dirt what profits bathing the outer shell?
The Form invisible is within the palace to that thou dost not bow the head.
Without long striving none wins the secret—what avails it to roam in the company of Sadhus?
Says Darya, Thou abandoned wretch, Thou fool, why dost thou weep and beat thy brow?