Gitanjali | Page 5

her adornments. She has no pride of dress and
decoration. Ornaments would mar our union; they would come between

thee and me; their jingling would drown thy whispers.
My poet's vanity dies in shame before thy sight. O master poet, I have
sat down at thy feet. Only let me make my life simple and straight, like
a flute of reed for thee to fill with music.
The child who is decked with prince's robes and who has jewelled
chains round his neck loses all pleasure in his play; his dress hampers
him at every step.
In fear that it may be frayed, or stained with dust he keeps himself from
the world, and is afraid even to move.
Mother, it is no gain, thy bondage of finery, if it keep one shut off from
the healthful dust of the earth, if it rob one of the right of entrance to
the great fair of common human life.
O Fool, try to carry thyself upon thy own shoulders! O beggar, to come
beg at thy own door!
Leave all thy burdens on his hands who can bear all, and never look
behind in regret.
Thy desire at once puts out the light from the lamp it touches with its
breath. It is unholy--take not thy gifts through its unclean hands.
Accept only what is offered by sacred love.
Here is thy footstool and there rest thy feet where live the poorest, and
lowliest, and lost.
When I try to bow to thee, my obeisance cannot reach down to the
depth where thy feet rest among the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.
Pride can never approach to where thou walkest in the clothes of the
humble among the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.
My heart can never find its way to where thou keepest company with
the companionless among the poorest, the lowliest, and the lost.

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou
worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?
Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!
He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the
pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower,
and his garment is covered with dust. Put of thy holy mantle and even
like him come down on the dusty soil!
Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found? Our master
himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation; he is bound
with us all for ever.
Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense!
What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained? Meet
him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.
The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.
I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and
pursued my
voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a
star and planet.
It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that
training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a
tune.
The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and
one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost
shrine at the end.
My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said 'Here art
thou!'
The question and the cry 'Oh, where?' melt into tears of a
thousand
streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance 'I am!'
The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.

I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my
instrument.
The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only
there is the agony of wishing in my heart.
The blossom has not opened; only the wind is sighing by.
I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice; only I have
heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house.
The livelong day has passed in spreading his seat on the floor; but the
lamp has not been lit and I cannot ask him into my house.
I live in the hope of meeting with him; but this meeting is not yet.
My desires are many and my cry is pitiful, but ever didst thou save me
by hard refusals; and this strong mercy has been wrought into my life
through and through.
Day by day thou art making me worthy of the simple, great gifts that
thou gavest to me unasked--this sky and the light, this body and the life
and the mind--saving me from perils of overmuch desire.
There are times