MY RIVER OF DEEP WATER
BY KAZI NAZRUL ISLAM
(Rendered
by Basudha Chakravarty from Bengali)
Oh
my river of deep water,
Ever
since my birth I have been
Floating
with you.
Your
flood swept away the house I had built:
Then
I squatted over the outlying
land
you had thrown up; but you
flooded
that land too!
Now
I have lost all and float
constantly
over your water.
If
you break my house, I may possibly have it back;
But
how is it you have broken my heart?
The
heart can not be had back once it is lost:
If
it be lost in ebb-tide, it is
not
got back in flow-tide.
For
when you break the shores
You
break only one of them;
But
when you break the heart,
You
break upon both of its edges.
And
when the heart breaks, nothing like land
outlying
in a river is left.