I listened through the ages, mute millenniums,
Far, far beyond the corridors of myths and legends.
I felt the heart of the burdened time.
I heard soul-searing cries and lamentations
Of cruel separation, pillage, murder, broken hopes,
Ruin, starvation, revenge, betrayal and hatred.

Gleams of moon rays, ringing laughter
And silver jingling bells so rarely
Accompanied the carmine fierce drama,
That the Seers of old gave up hope in their blindness
And left the poor earth to her seemingly uncompromising fate.

We love to weep and treasure our tragedies,
Gloat over the misery of our own kind,
And triumphantly celebrate slaughter and disaster.
Happiness is cloying, peace is monotonous,
Mirth of the youth and the frolic of the flowers
Are pastimes for the poets, artists and lunatics.

But the clay hides unshaped unseen dream-jars.
Sorrow and suffering are the outer coatings of a deep joy,
Ever new and more intoxicating than blood and tears.

The bud of sorrow blossoms on walls, partitions and division,
Dies in the wide openness of God’s Oneness.

**************

N.Guha Roy – 1956