Nobody believes in love-
not even me.

Love is the thing
you wait
to end.

Love is the thing
that will not,
cannot work.

Love is the thing
they warn you of-
the dire parents,
the friends
with their dead
marriages,
their crushed hopes.

Nothing crushes hope
but the will to make
the heart
like rock.

That will is strong.

The rock-heart stands
when the love songs crumble,
their yellowing sheet music
kept in a drawer,
their sweet hugs & tugs
forgotten,

If someone is rejected in love, s/he shall turn into a foe.
My born-blind heart has never fallen in love
with anybody; throughout the whole life, he has walked alone
on the dry path putting on a pair of old shoes.
That's why, I have enmity with none.

Translated from Bengali by the poet

I.

Nine of the clock, oh!
Wake my lazy head!
Your shoes of red morocco,
Your silk bed-gown:
Rouse, rouse, speck-eyed Mary
In your high bed!
A yawn, a smile, sleepy-starey,
Mary climbs down.
'Good-morning to my brothers,
Good-day to the Sun,
Halloo, halloo to the lily-white sheep
That up the mountain run.'

II.

Good-night to the meadow, farewell to the nine o'clock Sun,
'He loves me not, loves me, he loves me not' (O jealous one!)
'He loves me, he loves me not, loves me'--O soft nights of June,

Nightingales, a sigh, a whisper
In a shady nook
And the lullaby in silver
Of a lazy brook.

Light of night and midnight shadow
Falling from above
And the changing mood and magic
Of a face you love

Through dark clouds a red rose peeping
And an amber gleam,
And the kissing and the weeping
And the dawn serene!

Oh, unhappy stars! your fate I mourn,

Ye by whom the sea-toss'd sailor's lighted,
Who with radiant beams the heav'ns adorn,

But by gods and men are unrequited:
For ye love not,--ne'er have learnt to love!
Ceaselessly in endless dance ye move,
In the spacious sky your charms displaying,

What far travels ye have hasten'd through,
Since, within my loved one's arms delaying,

I've forgotten you and midnight too!

Most brightly of all burned the hair of my evening loved one:
to her I send the coffin of lightest wood.
Waves billow round it as round the bed of our dream in Rome;
it wears a white wig as I do and speaks hoarsely:
it talks as I do when I grant admittance to hearts.
It knows a French song about love, I sang it in autumn
when I stopped as a tourist in Lateland and wrote my letters
to morning.

A fine boat is that coffin carved in the coppice of feelings.
I too drift in it downbloodstream, younger still than your eye.

Night on our lives, ah me, how surely has it fallen!
Be they who can deceived. I dare not look before.
See, sad years, to your own; your little wealth long hoarded,
How sore it was to win, how soon it perished all!
Beauty, the one face loved, the pure eyes mine so worshipped,
So true, so touching once, so tender in their dreams!
Find me that hour again. I yield the rest uncounted,
Urns for the dust of time, divine in her sole tears.
--Unseen one! Unforgotten! Oh, if your eyes behold it
By chance, this page revealed which trembling hides your name,

Night is my sister, and how deep in love,
How drowned in love and weedily washed ashore,
There to be fretted by the drag and shove
At the tide's edge, I lie—these things and more:
Whose arm alone between me and the sand,
Whose voice alone, whose pitiful breath brought near,
Could thaw these nostrils and unlock this hand,
She could advise you, should you care to hear.
Small chance, however, in a storm so black,
A man will leave his friendly fire and snug
For a drowned woman's sake, and bring her back
To drip and scatter shells upon the rug.

Love, in this summer night, do you recall
Midnight, and Venice, and those skies of June
Thick-sown with stars, when from the still lagoon
We glided noiseless through the dim canal?
A sense of some belated festival
Hung round us, and our own hearts beat in tune
With passionate memories that the young moon
Lit up on dome and tower and palace wall.
We dreamed what ghosts of vanished loves made part
Of that sweet light and trembling, amorous air.
I felt in those rich beams that kissed your hair,

I am the nigger.
Singer of songs,
Dancer…
Softer than fluff of cotton…
Harder than dark earth
Roads beaten in the sun
By the bare feet of slaves…
Foam of teeth … breaking crash of laughter…
Red love of the blood of woman,
White love of the tumbling pickaninnies…
Lazy love of the banjo thrum…
Sweated and driven for the harvest-wage,
Loud laugher with hands like hams,
Fists toughened on the handles,
Smiling the slumber dreams of old jungles,
Crazy as the sun and dew and dripping, heaving life of the jungle,