I do many important things
They don't seem very difficult -
To do good to all mankind
I travel throughout the world
The crowds become bigger by the day
I have to do a lot of writing
And deliver lectures in various tongues
I also re-do many things I have already done.
I get caught in knots after knots
It's like laying bricks on bricks
To add new wings to my house.
Some praise my works
There are others who criticize
Trusting me some come closer
While some are suspicious.
Some of the materials I use are genuine
Some of them of course are spurious
With all these
Somehow I ultimately make something.
But those little dreams
Which are very dear to my heart
They may sound very simple
But they are not really so simple -
Like the pleasure I get in music,
In the flowers' fragrance,
Or in lazy dreams
Dreamt under the shades of a tree
At some leisure time -
It seems I can get them easily
But when I really want them
They are nowhere to be found!
In the beginning
This world was boundless and formless
With this nebulous nothing
When God in good earnest began His act of creation
His labors produced high mountains
But He got the first bunch of flowers
Only after millions of years' dreaming.
Long have I dreamt
In a corner of this world
Left to myself I shall remain alone -
I didn't hanker for fame or fortune
I only dreamt of a small nest of my own.
The cool shade of the tree
The gentle stream
At twilight the evening star
Beckoning me home
Near the window the flowers' fragrance
The first light of day beyond the pond -
I longed for a little home
That surrounded by all these
Would fill up the days of my life
With joys and sorrows.
So long I desired neither fame nor fortune
But that my innermost thoughts
I may express in my own words.
As the setting sun
With the fanciful last strokes of its brush
Paints on the clouds
The picture of the dying day
I would build my world of dream
With light and shadow
And the color and sweetness of my mind.
I longed for a little home
That surrounded by all these
Would fill up the days of my life
With joys and sorrows.
For a long time I harbored this hope in my mind
The deepest hunger of my heart
Would be satisfied at last
Not by fame or fortune
But by someone's love -
Just lovingly calling my beloved's name
Or holding her hand in my hand,
Sitting by her side without any reason,
When she would be away
Thinking about her sitting alone
And when she would come near
Our gleaming eyes would be anxious to say
Endless words of love -
Not fame or fortune
I only longed
That these dreams woven around my love
Would fill up the days of my life
With joys and sorrows.
Translation of the poem – Asha - from the collection Purabi by Rabindranath Tagore. It is a unique poem - the first two stanzas are more or less prosaic but the remaining part, in a different rhyme scheme, is unsurpassed in lyrical beauty and sweetness which is very difficult to recapture in translation. Also a gentle note of humour runs through the entire poem. The original poem in Bengali script may be viewed at http://www.rabindra-rachanabali.nltr.org/node/12380
