Rabindranath Tagore

Translated from Bengali by Nandini Gupta


“I shall not forget”, I said, when you turned
your misty eyes silently to me. Forgive me
if I have forgotten. It has been long. Many spring-blossoms
have dried and fallen in heaps over that ancient kiss;
how often the mid-day chirping
of pigeons have come and gone spreading over it
a blanket of weary sleep! Blushing, timorous, the glance
of your coal-black eyes wrote on my mind’s page
that first love-letter. There your heart etched
its signature; down the ages hour after hour
the shifting light and shade has painted it over,
so many dusks have brushed over it golden
amnesia, so many nights have enveloped it
with a faint filigree of their own dream-images.
Every minute, every moment sketches its own memoirs
on the palette of my mind, broken crude images like the doodles
of an unwitting child they engulf each other
weaving a web of forgetfulness. If in this falgun
I have forgotten words belonging to that distant
day, if the fire has (silently?) burnt out from the pain,
forgive me then.

Yet I know because one day you came to me, my life
is full with the rich harvest of my songs,
even today. The light in your eyes one day
sounded the deepest words, brought forth the music
from within the sun’s rays. Your touch is gone.
But this touchstone you’ve left behind in my mind
so that even today I see, ever and ever again
this world’s deathless image---it brings to my lips
my glass brimful with the nectar of unreasoning
joy. Forgive me if I have forgotten. Yet I know
one day you beckoned me into your heart. Therefore,
I forgive Fate. I forget all sorrow all grief she has filled
my days with. From my parched lips, she has snatched water,
mirthfully deceived, broken faith, abruptly sunk the laden boat
as it neared shore. All this I forgive her.
Today you are gone. Far, far away. The dusk
is grey with the missing sindoor in your hair.
This companionless life is ugly
in its vacuity. All that I know, but this above all---
                                     One day you were here.





The Andes
2 November, 1924

Published in Parabaas May 25, 2003

Translated by Nandini Gupta [nandinI gupta*] - Nandini Gupta is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands, working on ... (more)

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* To learn more about the ITRANS script for Bengali, click here.