A Cloudy Day
By RABINDRANATII TAGORE.
[Translated from the Original Bengali by Bhabani Bhattacharya.] THE days are all taken up by work. At nightfall I say to myself that the day has been fruitful, for the task has been done. I look not at the longing in my soul.
To-day the morning sky is dark with clouds. The day's work lies ahead. The crowd surges past ; but to-day I see its futility. There is a longing in my soul.
Man has climbed mountains and crossed oceans. He has gone down to the depths of the earth in search of gold. But never has he known the secret of filling up the void in his soul. - In this cloudy morning a lone thought is flapping its wings in my mind's prison. The inner man says, "Where is the ever-desired one who will produce a cloud-burst in my heart and take away all its burden of rain ? Where is the ever-desired one whose call will take me out. of this hedged. world of day-to-day work and send me wandering over the earth with the lamplight of song ? Where is the one whose glance will turn all my pains into joy ? I can give my all to her alone who knows how to demand my all. At which bend of the street does she await me with her perilous looks ? "
To-day my soul has put on the saffron garb of a way- farer. It longs to rush away to the road—the road that is like a single-stringed ektara quivering at the touch of a beloved finger.
Previous page
