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On the Bank of the Ravi |
Raft in its music, in evening’s hush, the Ravi;
But how it is with this heart, do not ask— |
Hearing in these soft cadences a prayer-call,
Seeing all earth God’s precinct, here beside |
The margins of the onward-flowing waters
Standing I scarcely know where I am standing. |
With palsied hand the taverner of heaven
Has brought the cup: red wine stains evening’s skirt; |
Day’s heading caravan has made haste towards - Extinction: twilight smoulders like hot ash
Of the sun’s funeral pyre. In solitude |
Far off, magnificent, those towers stand, where
The flower of Mughal chivalry lies asleep; |
A legend of Time’s tyranny is that palace;
A book, the register of days gone by; |
No mansion, but a melody of silence—
No trees, but an unspeaking parliament. |
Swiftly across the river’s bosom glides
A boat, the oarsman wrestling with the waves, |
A skiff light-motioned as a darting glance,
Soon far beyond the eye’s carved boundary. |
So glides the bark of mortal life, in the ocean
Of eternity so born, so vanishing, |
Yet never knowing what is death; for it
May disappear from sight, but cannot perish. |
Translated by: V.G. Kiernan |
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