MySong RABINDRANATH TAGORE (1861-1941)

4.MySong RABINDRANATH TAGORE (1861-1941)

This song of mine will touch your forehead like a kiss of blessing.

When you are alone it will sit by your side and whisper in your ear, when you are in the crowd it will fence you about with aloofness.

My song will be like a pair of wings to your dreams, it will transport your heart to the verge of the unknown.

It will be like the faithful star overhead when dark night is over your road.

My song will sit in the pupils of your eyes, and will carry your sight into the heart of things.

And when my voice is silent in death, my song will speak in your living heart.

THE LAST BARGAIN

Sword in hand, the King came in his chariot.

He held my hand and said, "I will hire you with my power."

But his power counted for nought, and he went away in his chariot.

In the heat of the midday the houses stood with shut doors.

I wandered along the crooked lane.

An old man came out with his bag of gold.

He pondered and said, "I will hire you with my money."

He weighed his coins one by one, but I turned away.

It was evening. The garden hedge was all aflower.

The fair maid came out and said, "I will hire you with a smile."

Her smile paled and melted into tears, and she went back alone into the dark.

The sun glistened on the sand, and the sea waves broke waywardly.

A child sat playing with shells.

He raised his head and seemed to know me, and said, "I hire you with nothing."

From thenceforward that bargain struck in child's play made me a free man.

Yesenin

Bright stars the birch-tree grove

Consoles my mother's grief.

The moon has, like a frog,

Upon the pond appeared.

Like apple blossom, locks

Of grey fleck father's beard.

I shall not soon come back!

Long shall snow blow in the yard.

Our one-legged maple shall

Over blue Russ stand guard.

To kiss its raining leaves

Is joy, and none so fine –

The head of the maple-tree

So closely resembles mine
6. Do not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Because their words have forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green day,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved I ton its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight.

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! Heart ! heart!

O the bleeding drops fo red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! Dear father!

The arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck,

You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still.

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won:

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth,
Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Has worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I’ kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

9. Chicago

C. Sandburg

Hog Butcher for the World,

Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

Player with Railroad and the Nation’s Freight Handle;

Stormy, husky, brawling,

City of the Big Shoulders:

Seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the aces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my cit, and I give them back the sneer and say to them”

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wildness,

Bareheaded,

Shoveling,

Wrecking,

Planning,

Building, breaking, rebuilding,

Under the smoke \, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,

Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,

Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,

Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,

Laughing!

Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.