Canto 8Appeal
Book 3. Part Three - Baroda and Bengal Circa 1900 – 1909
Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900–1909
Then I will love thee and then leave;
Under the codome’s boughs when thou goest by
Bound to the water morn or eve,
5Lean on that tree fluting melodiously.
Thou shalt hear me and fall at sight
Under my charm; my voice shall wholly move
Thy simple girl’s heart to delight;
Then shalt thou know the bitterness of love.
10(From an old Bengali poem)
Appeal
Thy youth is but a noon, of night take heed, —
A noon that is a fragment of a day,
And the swift eve all sweet things bears away,
15All sweet things and all bitter, rose and weed.
For others’ bliss who lives, he lives indeed.
But thou art pitiful and ruth shouldst know.
I bid thee trifle not with fatal love,
But save our pride and dear one, O my dove,
20And heaven and earth and the nether world below
Shall only with thy praises peopled grow.
Life is a bliss that cannot long abide,
But while thou livest, love. For love the sky
Was founded, earth upheaved from the deep cry
25Of waters, and by love is sweetly tied
The golden cordage of our youth and pride.
(Suggested by an old Bengali poem)