The Sun of the First Day – Tagore
That scorching summer afternoon comes back times and again,
Brings back gentle breeze of the water to refresh my memory;
The River Ganga arrives before me, the setting sun smiles dolefully;
The last lustre of its light reflects all around.
Murmuring waves infuse pleasure and pains in my mind.
Birds are flying back to their nests, say goodbye to me,
Leaving me alone in the prison of silence, I am lonely.
I am abandoned in a state of oceanic desolation.
I sink, sink deep into the world of my inner confusion.
I am on my boat, floating towards an unknown harbour;
The air suddenly stops blowing, my boat denies to move further.
Unexpectedly Gurudev arrives in his angelic complexion;
He seems to be at the end of his last inhalation,
Enunciating the lyric of his ultimate possession
“The Sun of the first day
Stood up and asked the question
To the new manifestation of life-
Who are you, little Sir?
There was no response
Time receded into distance, years passed by
The last Sun of the last day
On the shore of the western sea
Asks the same question
Who are you, Sir?
Evening spreads its silence
The setting sun gets no answer”
With a silky white beard and closed fawn-eyes,
The poet is lying on the bed waiting for the eternal rest.
I fell moaning to the floor and clutch his feet
As the sole raft of my rescue from my grieving life;
The paragon opens his eyes, gives a feeble smile;
Immediately disappears from my sight
The hallucination stops, I am left to my earlier state of position.
The speechless river and the dark night are the only companion.
The saint has gone leaving his priceless poetic treasure;
The divine voice still reverberates silently everywhere-
In the sky, in the earth, in the air, in the hearts, in the mind,
in joy, in sorrow, in tears, in the consciousness of mankind.
Aroma remains, nothing goes lost forever.