SRI AUROBINDO

Translations

from Sanskrit and Other Languages

II. From Bengali

Chittaranjan Das

Songs of the Sea (Sagar Sangit)

XXIV

Where have I seen thee? where have clasped thy hand?

When gazed into thy eyes? what distant time

Saw our first converse? what forgotten land?

Sangst thou? or was thy laughter heard sublime?

Then was the soul so full of deepest pains?

Were then the eyes so ready with their tears?

Such thoughts, such griefs, so many sobbing strains

Played on our soul-strings in those distant years?

Then didst thou take me to thy bosom wide

Like a kind friend with close-encircling arm?

Did all my thoughts into thy nature glide

Led out by love as with a whispered charm?

All I remember not, but this alone,

My heart joined thine in some past age or clime;

Because thy touch has never from me gone,

I float to thee across eternal Time.

I think, in a strange secret trysting-place

We too shall meet at last and recognise,

Where day weds night in some enchanted space,

All the old love awakening in our eyes.