Choice soul, in whom, as in a glass, we see,
Mirrored in thy pure form and delicate,
What beauties heaven and nature can create,
The paragon of all their works to be!
Fair soul, in whom love, pity, piety,
Have found a home, as from thy outward state
We clearly read, and are so rare and great
That they adorn none other like to thee!
Love takes me captive; beauty binds my soul;
Pity and mercy with their gentle eyes
Wake in my heart a hope that cannot cheat.
What law, what destiny, what fell control,
What cruelty, or late or soon, denies

the aged person
wanting to become a tree
embraces a tree

I had my wish. I was a king.
Each thing I touched was gold;
The land that knew eternal spring,
Was mine to have and hold.

In vain I looked for you. And then
I knew what price my throne!
How glad was I to wake again,
In rags, but not alone!

So many days, so many weeks,
So many months and years;
Life is a paucity of smiles,
A plenitude of tears.

But one sweet precious hour or two,
When love bloomed as a rose,
Is compensation for the task,
And crowns the evening's close!

If wishes were horses
Beggars would ride;
If turnips were watches
I would wear one by my side.

Two legs sat upon three legs
With one leg in his lap;
In comes four legs
And runs away with one leg;
Up jumps two legs,
Catches up three legs,
Throws it after four legs,
And makes him bring back one leg.

Little Betty Blue
Has lost her holiday shoe,
Give her another
To match the other,
And then she will walk in two.

I think I see her sitting, bowed and black,
Stricken and seared with slavery's mortal scars,
Reft of her children, lonely, anguished, yet
Still looking at the stars.

Symbolic mother, we thy myriad sons,
Pounding our stubborn hearts on Freedom's bars,
Clutching our birthright, fight with faces set,
Still visioning the stars!

Now,
At the third hour of the twentieth century
Where nothing separates the corpses of the dead
Form the shoes of the pedestrians
Except the asphalt
I shall recline in the middle of the street like a bedouin shaikh
And will not rise
Until all prison bars in the world
And all files of suspects
Are gathered and placed in front of me
That I can masticate them like a camel in the open road
Till all truncheons of police and demonstrators
Escape their hands
And once again become blossoming branches
In their forests.
I laugh in the dark

Remember, meditate, O my mind: thy life is passing without Hari's Name.
A bird without wings, an elephant without tusks: a woman husbandless.
As a harlot's fatherless son is nothing, so is the mind without Hari's Name.
A body without eyes, a night without moonlight, the earth without rain:
As a pandit without Vedic lore, so is the mind without Hari's Name.
A well without water, a cow without milk, a lampless shrine:
As a tree without flowers, so is the mind without Hari's Name.
Renounce desire, anger, lust and coveting, O Saintly Soul, forsake Illusion.