Sri Aurobindo

Translations

CWSA.- Volume 5

Part Two. Translations from Bengali
Section Three. Chittaranjan Das

Songs of the Sea

XXIX

How many aeons hast thou flowed like this,

The torture of this music in thy heart?

World-maddening melodies that stormed heart to kiss

After what cycles from thy surge still part,

Recalling endless ages,

Regretting countless lives?

Birthless and endless, bearing from the first

Eternal wailing thou sweepst on, O sea.

What hunger sobs in thee? what vehement thirst?

What tireless anguish moans implacably?

Moans many a thousand ages,

Moans many a million lives.

O friend cursed thus through the unending years!

O my unquiet ocean all of tears!

Yet ’tis to thee that leaving all I come,

As always came I to my real home

And always shall come in the endless years,

Parted through endless ages,

Met in unnumbered lives.