Rabindranath Tagore

“ Yes, now indeed, I know, Arjuna, the fame of your heroic manhood is false. Arjuna Ah, I feel how vain is fame, the pride of prowess! Everything seems to me a dream. You alone are perfect; you are the wealth of the world, the end of all poverty, the goal of all efforts, the one woman! Others there are who can be but slowly known. While to see you for a moment is to see perfect completeness once and for ever. Chitra Alas, it is not I, not I, Arjuna! It is the deceit of a god. Go, go, my hero, go. Woo not falsehood, offer not your great heart to an illusion. ”

“ Men hastily pass me in the market,—never noting how my body has grown precious with your caress, how I carry your kiss within, as the sun carries in its orb the fire of the divine touch and shines for ever.
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Like a child that frets and pushes away its toys, my heart to-day shakes its head at every phrase I suggest, and says, "No, not this."
Yet words, in the agony of their vagueness, haunt my mind, like vagrant clouds hovering over hills, waiting for some chance wind to relieve them of their rain.
But leave these vain efforts, my soul, for the stillness will ripen its own music in the dark. ”

“ Let your work be, bride. Listen, the guest has come.
Do you hear, he is gently shaking the chain which fastens the door?
See that your anklets make no loud noise, and that your step is not over-hurried at meeting him.
Let your work be, bride, the guest has come in the evening.
No, it is not the ghostly wind, bride, do not be frightened.
It is the full moon on a night of April; shadows are pale in the courtyard; the sky overhead is bright.
Draw your veil over your face if you must, carry the lamp to the door if you fear.
No, it is not the ghostly wind, bride, do not be frightened. ”

“ In the silence of gathering night I asked her, "Maiden, your lights are all lit—then where do you go with your lamp? My house is all dark and lonesome,—lend me your light." She raised her dark eyes on my face and stood for a moment doubtful. "I have come," she said at last, "to dedicate my lamp to the sky." I stood and watched her light uselessly burning in the void.
In the moonless gloom of midnight I asked her, " Maiden, what is your quest holding the lamp near your heart? My house is all dark and lonesome,—lend me your light." ”

“ The star may give us light, but not the day; it may give us direction in our voyage of exploration, but it can never open the full view of truth before our eyes. In fact, we can never use this cold starlight for stirring the sap in our branches, and giving colour and bloom to our life. This is the reason why European education has become for India mere school lessons and no culture; a box of matches, good for the small uses of illumination, but not the light of morning, in which the use and beauty, and all the subtle mysteries of life are blended in one. ”

“ And I came to the conclusion that it is because with us Nature is obviously the more important thing. The sky is free, the fields limitless; and the sun merges them into one blazing whole. In the midst of this, man seems so trivial. He comes and goes, like the ferry-boat, from this shore to the other; the babbling hum of his talk, the fitful echo of his song, is heard; the slight movement of his pursuit of his own petty desires is seen in the world's market-places: but how feeble, how temporary, how tragically meaningless it all seems amidst the immense aloofness of the Universe! ”

“ Leave off your work, mother; sit here by the window and tell me where the desert of Tepântar in the fairy tale is?
The shadow of the rains has covered the day from end to end.
The fierce lightning is scratching the sky with its nails.
When the clouds rumble and it thunders, I love to be afraid in my heart and cling to you.
When the heavy rain patters for hours on the bamboo leaves, and our windows shake and rattle at the gusts of wind, I like to sit alone in the room, mother, with you, and hear you talk about the desert of Tepântar in the fairy tale. ”

“ I live and move upon a world-wide chasm of separation, unstable as the dew-drop upon the lotus leaf.
Why do not men change wholly when they change? When I look into my heart, I find everything that was there, still there,—only they are topsy-turvy. Things that were well-ordered have become jumbled up. The gems that were strung into a necklace are now rolling in the dust. And so my heart is breaking.
I feel I want to die. Yet in my heart everything still lives,—nor even in death can I see the end of it all: rather, in death there seems to be ever so much more of repining. ”

“ I, for myself, cannot believe that Japan has become what she is by imitating the West. We cannot imitate life, we cannot simulate strength for long, nay, what is more, a mere imitation is a source of weakness. For it hampers our true nature, it is always in our way. It is like dressing our skeleton with another man's skin, giving rise to eternal feuds between the skin and the bones at every movement.
The real truth is that science is not man's nature, it is mere knowledge and training. By knowing the laws of the material universe you do not change your deeper humanity. ”

“ It was Sasi's supreme duty to trust her husband's word, but Sasi could not. At last her happy home, the domesticity of her love seemed hateful to her. That home life which had once seemed her supreme refuge was nothing more than a cruel snare of self-interest, which had surrounded them, brother and sister, on all sides. She was a woman, single-handed, and she knew not how she could save the helpless Nilmani. The more she thought, the more her heart filled with terror, loathing, and an infinite love for her imperilled little brother. ”

“ The Boatman is out crossing the wild sea at night.
The mast is aching because of its full sails filled with the violent wind.
Stung with the night’s fang the sky falls upon the sea, poisoned with black fear.
The waves dash their heads against the dark unseen, and the Boatman is out crossing the wild sea.
The Boatman is out, I know not for what tryst, startling the night with the sudden white of his sails.
I know not at what shore, at last, he lands to reach the silent courtyard where the lamp is burning and to find her who sits in the dust and waits. ”

“ SUDARSHANA.
What, Kanchi had to make the King understand all this! Woe is me, to-night’s festival has opened wide for me the doors of ignominy and shame! What else could I expect? Leave me alone, Rohini; I want solitude for a time. [ROHINI goes out.] A great blow has shattered my pride to atoms to-day, and yet . . . I cannot efface from my mind that beautiful, fascinating figure! No pride is left me-I am beaten, vanquished, utterly helpless. . . . I cannot even turn away from him. Oh, how the wish comes back to me again and again—to ask that garland of Rohini! ”

“ But you have dissolved my vow even as the moon dissolves the night’s vow of obscurity.
Chitra
Oh, shame upon you! What have you seen in me that makes you false to yourself? Whom do you seek in these dark eyes, in these milk-white arms, if you are ready to pay for her the price of your probity? Not my true self, I know. Surely this cannot be love, this is not man’s highest homage to woman! Alas, that this frail disguise, the body, should make one blind to the light of the deathless spirit! Yes, now indeed, I know, Arjuna, the fame of your heroic manhood is false. ”

“ A thought rises in my mind, like the warm breath from grass in the sun; it mingles with the gurgle of lapping water and the sigh of weary wind in village lanes,—the thought that I have lived along with the whole life of this world and have given to it my own love and sorrows.
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I ask no reward for the songs I sang you. I shall be content if they live through the night, until Dawn, like a shepherd-maiden, calls away the stars, in alarm at the sun.
But there were moments when you sang your songs to me, and as my pride knows, my Poet, you will ever remember that I listened and lost my heart. ”