BEAUTY

 

JATINDRA MOHAN GANGULI

 

I had sat under a tree

Under the bushy green leaves,

To write in rhyme sweet,

My mind was in dream,

On a face I had seen,

More sweet, more charming a face never been.

So soft the cheeks, red the lips,

What lustre in hair, love in eyes.

I took a pen a poem to write,

Her beauty and charm to describe.

A line I wrote and another in praise,

Then careless my eyes raise

On a little flower there on bed.

Its colour so bright and red.

A breeze from far came to flirt,

Shy flower swung from its thrust,

In blush its face to me turned,

I stared, my dream upturned.

What beauty this, the other beauty outshone,

My fancy to write the poem was gone.

Meena’s face, her beauty to write,

I had taken the pen,

The flower’s face, O its beauty­

What to write, how to write–

I dropped the pen.

 

Back