Beauty
enmeshed in her autumnal dream.
Sighs
to the beauty that wakes in the skies;
Beauty
awakes and opens her eyes
Caged
in her lure of the Sunderban stream.
Beauty
raising her languorous eyes
Gazes
at the glow of the day new born
Pass
a fire through a field of corn,
Or
weave a dream that the wave beat bids,
With
a crimson blush from the setting sun
The
sun’s gold playing with the gold of the fields,
Where
the silver shore to the river yields,
Where
the bronze-limbed children wallow and run;
With
the gold from the sky’s extremity,
The
sun’s gold playing with the gold of the fields,–
Beauty
full-bodied her babe’s food yields,–
Dream
charmed back to reality!
As
Posora deep-bosomed, rolling hollow
Rolls
her muddy flood to the bay,
By
the winding river-brim follow, follow,
For
a tongue-tied hour the tangled way.
Across
the grove of sentinel date,
That
watch the ‘gol’ die by the river’s brink,
To
the muttering reed where the cattle drink,
Over
the field that mourns her fallow fate.
Hark!
now the boatman’s melody breaks
The
heaped up hush of the afternoon light,
As
lightning shatters the idol night,
As
thrilled by a child-song peace awakes!
For
a tongue-tied hour the tangled way
By
the winding river-brim follow, follow,
As
Posora deep-bosomed, rolling hollow
Rolls
her muddy flood to the bay.
Or
rest by the roots of the banyan spreading,
Moss-limbed,
hollowed, gnarled and old,
Like
a sage, arm-lifted, for years untold,
Broods
on a thousand bride-sails threading–
Hope
in the river-wave quivers along,
Serpentine
streams of Sunderban flowing,
Bound
where, O where! the bride-sails glowing
On
sun-lit waves of laughter and song?