Читать книгу Complete Works - Rabindranath Tagore - Страница 223

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50

“Come, moon, come down, kiss my darling on the forehead,” cries the mother as she holds the baby girl in her lap while the moon smiles as it dreams. There come stealing in the dark the vague fragrance of the summer and the nightbird’s songs from the shadow-laden solitude of the mango-grove. At a far-away village rises from a peasant’s flute a fountain of plaintive notes, and the young mother, sitting on the terrace, baby in her lap, croons sweetly, “Come, moon, come down, kiss my darling on the forehead.” Once she looks up at the light of the sky, and then at the light of the earth in her arms, and I wonder at the placid silence of the moon.

The baby laughs and repeats her mother’s call, “Come, moon, come down.” The mother smiles, and smiles the moonlit night, and I, the poet, the husband of the baby’s mother, watch this picture from behind, unseen.

51

The early autumn day is cloudless. The river is full to the brim, washing the naked roots of the tottering tree by the ford. The long narrow path, like the thirsty tongue of the village, dips down into the stream.

My heart is full, as I look around me and see the silent sky and the flowing water, and feel that happiness is spread abroad, as simply as a smile on a child’s face.

52

Tired of waiting, you burst your bonds, impatient flowers, before the winter had gone. Glimpses of the unseen comer reached your wayside watch, and you rushed out running and panting, impulsive jasmines, troops of riotous roses.

You were the first to march to the breach of death, your clamour of colour and perfume troubled the air. You laughed and pressed and pushed each other, bared your breast and dropped in heaps.

The Summer will come in its time, sailing in the floodtide of the south wind. But you never counted slow moments to be sure of him. You recklessly spent your all in the road, in the terrible joy of faith.

You heard his footsteps from afar, and flung your mantle of death for him to tread upon. Your bonds break even before the rescuer is seen, you make him your own ere he can come and claim you.