 The Fugitive
by Rabindranath Tagore
1
Darkly you sweep on, Eternal Fugitive, round whose bodiless rush stagnant space
frets into eddying bubbles of light.
Is your heart lost to the Lover calling you across his immeasurable loneliness?
Is the aching urgency of your haste the sole reason why your tangled tresses
break into stormy riot and pearls of fire roll along your path as from a broken
necklace?
Your fleeting steps kiss the dust of this world into sweetness, sweeping aside
all waste; the storm centered with your dancing limbs shakes the sacred shower
of death over life and freshens her growth.
Should you in sudden weariness stop for a moment, the world would rumble into a
heap, an encumbrance, barring its own progress, and even the least speck of
dust would pierce the sky throughout its infinity with an unbearable pressure.
My thoughts are quickened by this rhythm of unseen feet round which the anklets
of light are shaken.
They echo in the pulse of my heart, and through my blood surges the psalm of the
ancient sea.
I hear the thundering flood tumbling my life from world to world and form to
form, scattering my being in an endless spray of gifts, in sorrowings and
songs.
The tide runs high, the wind blows, the boat dances like thine own desire, my
heart!
Leave the hoard on the shore and sail over the unfathomed dark towards
limitless light.
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