Evolution of Love 2

A Flight of Swans

Lines from "A Flight of Swans" by Rabindranath Tagore:

"O flying swans,
Tonight you have opened for me the door of Silence.
Behind her veil, in earth, sky, water,
I hear the restless beating of wings.
The grass is fluttering its wings in the sky of earth;
In the brooding darkness of the earth,
Who knows what myriad of budding seeds
Are spreading their wings?
Tonight,
I behold this mountain, this forest,
Spreading their wings,
Winging from island to island,
Soaring from unknown to unknown.
To the beating of the wings of stars
Throbs the cry of light in darkness.
I hear the countless voices of the human heart
Flying unseen,
From the dim past to the dim unblossomed future,
Hear, within my own breast,
The fluttering of the homeless bird, which,
In company with countless others,
Flies day and night,
Through light and darkness,
From shore to shore unknown.
The void of the universe is resounding with the
music of wings:
'Not here, not here, somewhere far beyond'."

(Translated by Aurobindo Bose, who stated that "most of the Balaka poems were written during the First World War, and a few before, at Ramgarh in the Himalayas, at Allahabad, Santiniketan, and on the banks of the Padma. The tiny volume of fortyfive poems is a landmark in Bangali literature, both because it introduces new verse forms, and because of the wide sweep of its thought. It is considered to be one of Tagore's masterpieces.")