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Hasn’t Your Mind Yet
Hasn’t your mind yet begun to rock, my dear
On Chilka waters, with me, your gondolier?
So dense the moonshine’s feel
Oars alone say — silvery hills — we’ve come here both to steal.
Hasn’t the bird yet taken off in your mind?
Whenever I cage it absently, I find
To the distant woods it flees
Hasn’t your mind yet signed the bird’s release?
All the way you went from west to east
This gullible fool you told that at least
For your imagination to cover all earth’s no matter
Doggedly hold I to this faith — and languish in Calcutta.
The Key
Your missing, much beloved key
E’en today, with me alone doth lie.
Tell me how you’ll open your trunk.
The beauty spot on your chin there still must be –
My soul! Then why for a fresh new land pine I?
Had to write this letter, to be frank.
The key dear I’d stored with loving care,
Only today the time at last’s arrived.
Do write, if you wish to have it back.
In the midst of all my junk memoir
Your face with sparkling tears alone’s survived
Do write, if you wish to have it back.
Hridoypur*
Though darkness still did hold its sway -- 'twas daylight all the same
Hridoypur was set to play -- a complicated game
Drowned the river bank below -- in the sky one saw recline
A lustrous moon in all its glow -- its eyes a pitiless shine
Why offer her a ride at all -- whose face expresses frown
Who posts a guard on every wall -- and keeps her shutters down?
Is there a need for calling her -- once again this hour
To Hridoypur when all its queer -- childish games are over?
Original in Bengali by Shakti Chattopadhyay who was amongst the greatest of the post Tagore poets.
* "Hridoy" means "heart" in Bengali. "Pur" is a suffix used to denote a locality. For example, "Nagpur" is a town through which the River Nag flows.
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