It seems as if a hundred lives’ joy, fearsSri Aurobindo
Translations
CWSA.- Volume 5
Part Two. Translations from Bengali
Section Three.
Chittaranjan Das
XIII
O now today like a too brilliant dream
What is this that thy floating heart reveals
In the full moon’s intense wide-flowing beam?
What infinite peace from thy calm moonlight steals
Waking my breast to this unchecked delight?
What melody moves thee in the luminous night?
What shadow of a dream from lives long past
Returns into thy ancient heart, O sea?
What bygone virtue comes fulfilled at last?
What dead illusion paints this dream on thee?
A hundred glimmering memories break like flowers
On waves of moonlight in my life’s still hours.
It seems as if a hundred lives’ joy, fears
And burden of their laughter and their tears
Today came round me and incessantly
Sang to my soul their anthem in this sea.
A million lives today have met in one
And float on dream a single flower alone.