The Eagle

(Translated from a Bengali poem by Benozin Ahmed)

BY BASUDHA CHAKRAVARTY

Before us is the dark night beset by storm:

Where are you now, oh the mad eagle, bound for the

infinite horizon? Spread out your wings!

Before us dances a cataclysm that in its wild joy

knows no restraints:

But before us is also the blue endless sky of planets, suns and stars.

Before us is an assembly of desires that have broken all

bounds: also the perpetual dream of a new world.

The stream of life flows across the world before us:

it glitters with life;

The voice of Liberty calls to our minds “Come, oh ye!–sharp!”

From within the heart of destruction the new child of creation

is born:

In the depth of night bloom the rays of the new dawn.

The hard way ahead is a beacon of life’s pilgrimage:

Though the night ahead is stormy, at the end of darkness

the full moon will rise again.

So listen not to forbidding:

Oh, you intrepid eagle! Unto the eternal ahead

spread out your wings!

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