love poetry

ON HIS DEPARTURE FROM BAHIA

When thou stoodst amidst thy countrymen
Our captive and our foe,
What voice of pity was it then
That check'd the fatal blow?

When the name of the mighty 'Man of Fire'
Re-echoed to the sky,
And our chiefs forgot their deadly ire—
Who hail'd thy victory?

What voice like the softest, sweetest note
That rings from the slender white bird's throat,
Has soothed thee so oft to rest?
And thou hast said, so tenderly,

Hark, hark to His Flute of delight!
On the bank of Life’s lone shadowy river
He plays to quell our Night!

Wreathed in sweet smiles, a vision of Gleam,
He is crowned with His aerial Love!
He dances, a beacon to derelict souls,
On earth star’s kinship to prove!

[Translated by Dilip Kumar Roy]

Hide not behind the veil, my love,
I long to have a glimpse of you.

Without my love, I feel like mad,
People around me laugh at me.
He should come and cheer me up,
This alone remains my plea,

Hide not behind the veil, my love,
I long to have a glimpse of you.

Your slave is being auctioned free
Come my love and rescue me
No longer can I perch elsewhere
I am the Bulbul of your tree

Hide not behind the veil, my love,
I long to have a glimpse of you.

Bulleh! Who is He?

Hide me in your heart, Love,
None but we can know
How with every heart--beat
Love could grow and grow

Till the seed that branched abroad,
How, we could not guess,
Holds us in the shadow
Of its boughs that bless;

And the stars and mountains,
Earth and chanting sea
Seem a mighty music
Sung to you and me;

Time--forgotten meaning,
Poured for us apart,
Murmured out of all the world
To our secret heart.

Hide within my heart, Love.
Never may I know

WHEN our glowing dreams were dead,
Ruined our heroic piles,
Something in your dark eyes said:
“Think no more of love or smiles.”

Something in me still would say,
“Though our dreamland palace goes,
I have seen how in decay
Still the wild rose clings and blows.”

But your dark eyes willed it thus:
“Build our lofty dream again:
Let our palace rise o’er us:
Love can never be till then.”

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.


Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.

I dreamed as in my bed I lay,
All night's fathomless wisdom come,
That I had shorn my locks away
And laid them on Love's lettered tomb:
But something bore them out of sight
In a great tumult of the air,
And after nailed upon the night
Berenice's burning hair.

HE turned his face apart, and gave a sigh
And a strange whimper—such a pitiful thing
As haunts the heart for days. “Yes, Love can bring
Unto a pass so low that it seems high:
And, when we see a brave and strong man cry
With a poor infant's feeble sorrowing,
It is a nobler passion than to wing
Shafts of small angers and small prides,” thought I.
There is a love so deaf that it can hear
Not even its own voice which bids it seek
A name for its own meanness: it would find
The outlet else. But thus it is a sheer

She kneels with haggard eyes and hair
Unto the Christ upon the Cross:
Her gown is torn; her feet are bare.

What is this thing she begs of him,
The gentle Christ upon the Cross?
Her hands are clasped; her face is dim.

Is it forgiveness for her sin,
She asks of Christ upon the Cross?
And mercy for the soul within?

With anguished face, so sad and sweet,
She kneels to Christ upon the Cross:
Her arms embrace his nail-pierced feet.

Her tears run slowly down her face,

Heaped in raven loops and masses
Over temples smooth and fair,
Have you marked it, as she passes,
Gleam and shadow mingled there,
Braided strands of midnight air,
Helen's hair?

Deep with dreams and starry mazes
Of the thought that in them lies,
Have you seen them, as she raises
Them in gladness or surprise,
Two gray gleams of daybreak skies,
Helen's eyes?

Moist with dew and honied wafters
Of a music sweet that slips,
Have you marked them, brimmed with laughter's