The king goes on campaigns
Blowing trumpets and bugles
And the earth shakes.
The crafty minister casts
Nets of sinister conspiracies
And the neighboring states
Are caught in tangled webs.
The flow of trade
Runs around the globe
In tides full and ebb
And the merchants' ships
Ply along the oceans' shores.
Victory towers are raised
On the heaps of millions dead
With their haughty heads in the sky
They laugh in immense pride.
Time and again the pundits attack
Learning's fort
Made impregnable by walls
Of bricks of books
And their fame spreads
Far and wide.
Here at the end of the village
Beyond the fields
The river placidly flows
A little boat
Takes up a newly wed bride
And leaves for another village.
Down the sun goes
On either banks
The fields in silence sleep
The bride's heart
Is tremulous in fear and hope.
In the dark
On the distant horizon
The evening star
Slowly appears.
Translation of ‘Jatra’ from the collection Bichitrita by Rabindranath Tagore. The original poem in Bengali script may be viewed at
