Rabindranath Tagore: Your flute plays the exact notes of my pain. (from The Lover of God)

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Your flute plays the exact notes of my pain. (from The Lover of God)

Rabindranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore poetry, Yoga / Hindu, Yoga / Hindu poetry, poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry, poetry

by Rabindranath Tagore
(1861 - 1941) Timeline

English version by
Tony Stewart and Chase Twitchell

Original Language
Bengali

Your flute plays the exact notes of my pain.
It toys with me.
Where did you learn such stealth,
such subtle wounding, Kan?
The arrows in my breast
burn even in rain and wind.
Wasted moments pulse around me,
wishes and desires, departing happiness --
Master, my soul scorches.
I think you can see its heat in my eyes,
its intensity and cruelty. So let me drown
in the cool and consoling Yamuna,
or slake my desire in your cool,
consoling, changing-moon face.
It's the face I'll see in death.
Here's my wish and pledge:
that that same moon will spill its white pollen
down through the roof of flowers
into the grove, where I'll consecrate my life
to it forever, and be its flute-breath,
the perfume that hangs upon the air,
making all the young girls melancholy.
That's my prayer.

Oh, the two of you, way out of earshot.
If you look back you'll see me, Bhanu,
warming herself at the week embers of the past.

-- from The Lover of God, by Rabindranath Tagore / Translated by Tony Stewart

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Themes

Death

Fire

Flute

Garden

Heart

Recommended Books

	Collected Poems & Plays of Rabindranath Tagore, by Rabindranath Tagore
	The Crescent Moon, by Rabindranath Tagore
	The Fugitive, by Rabindranath Tagore
	Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore
	The Heart of God: Prayers of Rabindranath Tagore, by Rabindranath Tagore / Edited by Herbert F. Vetter

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