SRI AUROBINDO

Translations

from Sanskrit and Other Languages

II. From Bengali

Chittaranjan Das

Songs of the Sea (Sagar Sangit)

XXXI

My sleepless midnight thou hast filled indeed

With seas of song, O King of minstrelsy.

What pomps of sound through the thick night proceed!

What surf, what surge of thunders rolls over me!

My eyes, my face are covered with thee, O main,

My heart sunk down beneath thy echo-plain.

My soul like a flower offered to the storm

Trembles. What wild great song without a form

Burdened with all the joys a heart can feel,

Torn with all agonies no joy can heal,

Rolls through this darkness? Nothing do I see,

Only a rumour and infinity

I feel upon my bosom lay its weight,

A Clamouring vague vastness increate.

A hundred strains left voiceless to the ear,

A thousand silences of song I hear.

Of universal sound the wordless tongue

That in each voice and cry is hidden deep,

The heart unsung of all songs ever sung

Comes to me through the veils of death and sleep.