ধূপ আপনারে মিলাইতে চাহে গন্ধে

ধূপ আপনারে মিলাইতে চাহে গন্ধে   উত্সর্গ / ১৭   ['আবর্তন' (সঞ্চয়িতা)]

                   The cycle

Incense yearns to sublimate as fragrance,
   Fragrance longs to stick around the incense.
Melody likes to bind its soul in rhythm,
  Rhythm chooses to dwell in melody-abodes.
Ideas need fetters of forms to express,
  Form adores freedom in ideas.
The Infinite clings to the vicinity of limits,
  The Finite desires to mystify with the Boundless.
I know not the logic of such birth and death,
  Eternal transitions of spirit and form ---
Chains wait eagerly to be shattered,
  Freedom seeks encasement in bounds.

Translated by Subrata Majumdar,
2 August 2010

 Original published in Utsarga - 17, 1914 and as Abartan (in Sanchayita)

পাগল হইয়া বনে বনে ফিরি

পাগল হইয়া বনে বনে ফিরি  উত্সর্গ / ৭   ['মরীচিকা' (সঞ্চয়িতা)]
 
Mirage

My own sweet smell
Drives me utterly mad
In search of fragrance-source
Like the scented deer
In forests far and near.
In southern breeze in nights of spring
To find no trace anywhere.
Our pining is full of fault
We gain what we yearn not.

My desires appear mirages
Away from my heart
I stretch my hands to catch them
To heart they never come back.
Our pining is full of fault
We gain what we yearn not.

My eager and maddened flute
Strives to entrap my songs.
For songs thus confined
The melodial essence is lost.
Our pining is full of fault
We gain what we yearn not.


Translated by Subrata Majumdar
3 August 2010

Original in Utsarga / 7, 1914 and Marichika (from Sanchayita)