CALL US, OH MOTHER!

A Tagore poem: translated by BASUDHA CHAKRAVARTY

Stand at your door once, Oh mother,

and cry out to us your call!

Evening descends on your vast plains,

darkness envelopes the earth:

Call us, Oh mother, say:

“Come to me, come to my arms;

Call in your plaintive native language:

Give us the call that floods the heart with pity–

that makes the nerves and veins vibrate:

And everybody, wherever he may be,

indifferent or at play,

gets up with a start.

We crossed the river at morn,

We sought the unattainable,

We begged morsels of alien

food and tried to appease our hunger:

Now we want to recross the river,

But the ferry-boat no longer plies!

Send your boat to this bank, Mother!

Our own land lies fallow

somewhere at the end of the village:

The vast, desolate, dreary field

Wails in the restless wind!

Your light throbs in the wind,

seems likely to be extinguished:

Protect it, Oh mother, with

the edge of the cloth on your chest;

Raise it up with your right hand

so that it illumines your forehead,

so that we can know it from a far

and return home, riot being

misled by the will O’ the wisp:

The door is closed, Oh mother,

at the alien house on this side of the river.

The evening wind brings along

the smell of your forest flowers:

Your Cuckoo sings its last song

at some far, dark grove:

There is no longer anybody on the road:

In the deep forest the fire-fly shines:

Tears well up in restless emotion in both our eyes:

Stand out of your door, Oh

mother, and do call us!

Back