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Fiercely they rend in pieces the carpet woven during ages of prayer for the welcome of the world's best hope.
The great preparations of love lie a heap of shreds, and there is nothing on the ruined altar to remind the mad crowd that their god was to have come. In a fury of passion they seem to have burnt their future to cinders, and with it the season of their bloom.
The air is harsh with the cry, "Victory to the Brute!" The children look haggard and aged; they whisper to one another that time revolves but never advances, that we are goaded to run but have nothing to reach, that creation is like a blind man's groping.
I said to myself, "Cease thy singing. Song is for one who is to come, the struggle without an end is for things that are."
The road, that ever lies along like some one with ear to the ground listening for footsteps, to-day gleans no hint of coming guest, nothing of the house at its far end.
My lute said, "Trample me in the dust."
I looked at the dust by the roadside. There was a tiny flower among thorns.
And I cried, "The world's hope is not dead!"
The sky stooped over the horizon to whisper to the earth, and a hush of expectation filled the air. I saw the palm leaves clapping their hands to the beat of inaudible music, and the moon exchanged glances with the glistening silence of the lake.
The road said to me, "Fear nothing!" and my lute said, "Lend me thy songs!"
TRANSLATIONS
BAUL SONGS4
1
This longing to meet in the play of love, my Lover, is not only mine but yours.
Your lips can smile, your flute make music, only through delight in my love; therefore you are importunate even as I.
2
I sit here on the road; do not ask me to walk further.
If your love can be complete without mine let me turn back from seeking you.
I refuse to beg a sight of you if you do not feel my need.
I am blind with market dust and mid-day glare, and so wait, in hopes that your heart, my heart's lover, will send you to find me.
3
I am poured forth in living notes of joy and sorrow by your breath.
Mornings and evenings in summer and in rains, I am fashioned to music.
Should I be wholly spent in some flight of song, I shall not grieve, the tune is so dear to me.
4
My heart is a flute he has played on. If ever it fall into other hands let him fling it away.
My lover's flute is dear to him, therefore if to-day alien breath have entered it and sounded strange notes, let him break it to pieces and strew the dust with them.
5
In love the aim is neither pain nor pleasure but love only.
While free love binds, division destroys it, for love is what unites.
Love is lit from love as fire from fire, but whence came the first flame?
In your being it leaps under the rod of pain.
Then, when the hidden fire flames forth, the in and the out are one and all barriers fall in ashes.
Let the pain glow fiercely, burst from the heart and beat back darkness, need you be afraid?
The poet says, "Who can buy love without paying its price? When you fail to give yourself you make the whole world miserly."
6
Eyes see only dust and earth, but feel with the heart, and know pure joy.
The delights blossom on all sides in every form, but where is your heart's thread to make a wreath of them?
My master's flute sounds through all things, drawing me out of my lodgings wherever they may be, and while I listen I know that every step I take is in my master's house.
For he is the sea, he is the river that leads to the sea, and he is the landing-place.
7
Strange ways has my guest.
He comes at times when I am unprepared, yet how can I refuse him?
I watch all night with lighted lamp; he stays away; when the light goes out and the room is bare he comes claiming his seat, and can I keep him waiting?
I laugh and make merry with friends, then suddenly I start up, for lo! he passes me by in sorrow, and I know my mirth was vain.
I have often seen a smile in his eyes when my heart ached, then I knew my sorrow was not real.
Yet I never complain when I do not understand him.
8
I am the boat, you are the sea, and also the boatman.
Though you never make the shore, though you let me sink, why should I be foolish and afraid?
Is reaching the shore a greater prize than losing myself with you?
If you are only the haven, as they say, then what is the sea?
Let it surge and toss me on its waves, I shall be content.
I live in you whatever and however you appear. Save me or kill me as you wish, only never leave me in other hands.
9
Make way, O bud, make way, burst open thy heart and make way.
The opening spirit has overtaken thee, canst thou remain a bud any longer?
THE FUGITIVE—III
1
Come, Spring, reckless lover of the earth, make the forest's heart pant for utterance!
Come in gusts of disquiet where flowers break open and jostle the new leaves!
Burst, like a rebellion of light, through the night's vigil, through the lake's dark dumbness, through the dungeon under the dust, proclaiming freedom to the shackled seeds!
Like the laughter of lightning, like the shout of a storm, break into the midst of the noisy town; free stifled word and unconscious effort, reinforce our flagging fight, and conquer death!
2
I have looked on this picture in many a month of March when the mustard is in bloom—this lazy line of the water and the grey of the sand beyond, the rough path along the river-bank carrying the comradeship of the field into the heart of the village.
I have tried to capture in rhyme the idle whistle of the wind, the beat of the oar-strokes from a passing boat.
I have wondered in my mind how simply it stands before me, this great world: with what fond and familiar ease it fills my heart, this encounter with the Eternal Stranger.
3