71-80

Early morning sea

71

THE woodcutter’s axe begged for its handle from the tree.

The tree gave it.

72

IN my solitude of heart

I feel the sigh of this widowed evening

 veiled with mist and rain.

73

CHASTITY

is a wealth that comes from

abundance of love.

74

THE mist,

like love,

plays upon the heart of the hills

and brings out surprises of beauty.

75

WE read the world wrong

and say that it deceives us.

76

THE poet wind is out over the sea

and the forest to seek his own voice.

77

EVERY child

 comes with the message

that God is not yet discouraged

of man.

78

THE grass seeks her crowd in the earth.

The tree seeks his solitude of the sky.

79

MAN barricades against himself.

80

YOUR voice, my friend,

 wanders in my heart,

like the muffled sound of the sea

among these listening pines.

NEXT poem

From: Stray Birds

By Rabindranath Tagore

[translated from Bengali to English by the author]

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916