Thursday, October 12, 2017

Rabindranath Tagore's 'Unending Love'

(What a beautiful narration. As Faiz said
gar aaj tujh se juda hain to kal baham honge 
ye raat  bhar ki judaaii  to  koi baat nahin )


I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

 Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

 You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

 Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

2 comments:

bsc said...

Question that sometimes prop in my mind
Does every poet has a single beloved? Then Is she always real or can be totally imaginary. (Not talking about Ishq-e-haqiqi)
Poets like Akhter Sherani even used her name openly (I always thought it was unethical) in his poems but most poets do not go that far.
Is it always female for a male poet? (I know ,not necessarily)

mystic-soul said...

As Mir Taqi Mir once said:

"Mir kya sada hain, bimar huway jis kay sabab,
Usi attar kay londay sey dawa latay hain."