THE ARTIST
The selfsame radiant ecstasy
Which wrought the tempest’s giant wrath
Has painted gorgeous dream-designs
So delicately on the moth.
The selfsame luminous agony
Which shaped the lightning’s fiery claw
Has carved in utmost tenderness
A summer flower without a flaw.
The selfsame motherhood which made
The awful mystery of death
Has built the body of a child
And lit its limbs with golden breath.
The selfsame miracle which moves
In silent mystery apart
Has struck the secret melody
Which dances shyly in my heart.
Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.
IMAGERY
He has fashioned the stars and the moons to the music
Of innermost-flowering joy and desire,
He has tried his own love for himself through the ages
By flooding his limbs with unquenchable fire
Of creation that dances and bubbles and flutters
In peacocks, in seas, and the hearts of the birds.
Behind the rich silence of red-running sunsets
And cool-coloured sundawns he utters his words.
He is finding for ever his infinite fullness
In blossoming buds and the withering flowers.
He shapes through the heart of the world his Ideal
So white in the midst of the many-hued hours.
He weaves a fine trammel of marvellous colours
Around and about him in utter delight,
Till straight through the darkness his laughter comes lambent,
Birdlike from a cage in a freedom of flight.
Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.
I
TRANSIENCE
Forgive this wrong:
That of your beauty I have made
Only a passing song,
Only a white-flower song that will fade
Ere I have time to lay it beneath
The shapèd beauty of your feet.