His name was Rab. He died in Bengal, the land of tigers, in 1941. On his way out the door, he said, “Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”
When Rab was sixteen, he published a book of poetry under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha, which means “Sun Lion.” Those poems were seized upon by literary authorities as “long-lost classics.”
Where do you hurry with your basket
this late evening when the marketing is over?
They all have come home with their burdens;
The moon peeps from above the village trees.
The echoes of the voices calling for the ferry
run across the dark water to the distant swamp
where wild ducks sleep.
Where do you hurry with your basket
when the marketing is over?
Sleep has laid her fingers
upon the eyes of the earth.
The nests of the crows have become silent,
and the murmurs of the bamboo leaves are silent.
The labourers home from their fields
spread their mats in the courtyards.
Where do you hurry with your basket
when the marketing is over?
Rab wrote this in 1913,
Free me from the bonds of your sweetness, my love!
No more of this wine of kisses.
This mist of heavy incense stifles my heart.
Open the doors, make room for the morning light.
I am lost in you, wrapped in the folds of your caresses.
Free me from your spells, and give me back the manhood
to offer you my freed heart.
Famous for his role as President Jed Bartlet, Martin Sheen spoke several months ago at a White House event celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the debut of “The West Wing” on television. He wrapped up his short speech by reciting a poem that Rab had written more than 100 years earlier.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Rab knew that you and I would be here today, and he left us a message.
Who are you, reader,
reading my poems a hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower
from this wealth of the spring,
one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden
gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers
of a hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel
the living joy that sang one spring morning,
sending its glad voice across a hundred years.
Rab – Rabindranath Tagore – was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.
He was the first non-European ever to win a Nobel Prize.
Roy H. Williams
NOTE FROM INDY: Speaking of Martin Sheen, his name has recently been mentioned in association with the book, “When Rabbis Bless Congress: The Great American Story of Jewish Prayers on Capitol Hill.” Aroo.
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