New Year Poems:The New Year by Tagore/New Year’s Eve by A. E. Housman

Music:
NNALE EN JEEVAN Cover -Rajesh Cherthala

The New Year
Tagore

LIKE FRUIT, shaken free by an impatient wind
from the veils of its mother flower,
thou comest, New Year, whirling in a frantic dance
amid the stampede of the wind-lashed clouds
and infuriate showers,
while trampled by thy turbulence
are scattered away the faded and the frail
in an eddying agony of death.

Thou art no dreamer afloat on a languorous breeze,
lingering among the hesitant whisper and hum
of an uncertain season.

Thine is a majestic march, o terrible Stranger,
thundering forth an ominous incantation,
driving the days on to the perils of a pathless dark,
where thou carriest a dumb signal in thy banner,
a decree of destiny undeciphered.

New Year’s Eve
A. E. Housman

The end of the year fell chilly
Between a moon and a moon;
Thorough the twilight shrilly
The bells rang, ringing no tune.

The windows stained with story,
The walls with miracle scored,
Were hidden for gloom and glory
Filling the house of the Lord.

Arch and aisle and rafter
And roof-tree dizzily high
Were full of weeping and laughter
And song and saying good-bye.

There stood in the holy places
A multitude none could name,
Ranks of dreadful faces
Flaming, transfigured in flame.

Crown and tiar and mitre
Were starry with gold and gem;
Christmas never was whiter
Than fear on the face of them.

In aisles that emperors vaulted
For a faith the world confessed,
Abasing the Host exalted,
They worshipped towards the west.

They brought with laughter oblation;
They prayed, not bowing the head;
They made without tear lamentation,
And rendered me answer and said:

‘O thou that seest our sorrow,
It fares with us even thus:
To-day we are gods, to-morrow
Hell have mercy on us.

‘Lo, morning over our border
From out of the west comes cold;
Down ruins the ancient order
And empire builded of old.

‘Our house at even is queenly
With psalm and censers alight:
Look thou never so keenly
Thou shalt not find us to-night.

‘We are come to the end appointed
With sands not many to run:
Divinities disanointed
And kings whose kingdom is done.

‘The peoples knelt down at our portal,
All kindreds under the sky;
We were gods and implored and immortal
Once; and to-day we die.’

They turned them again to their praying,
They worshipped and took no rest
Singing old tunes and saying
‘We have seen his star in the west,’

Old tunes of the sacred psalters,
Set to wild farewells;
And I left them there at their altars
Ringing their own dead knells.

Among the water-lilies by Khalil Gibran

Music:
Ahebak - Hussain Al Jassmi - Violin Cover by Andre Soueid

Among the water-lilies
From"Jesus,The son Of man"
Khalil Gibran

Upon a day my beloved and I
were rowing upon the lake of sweet waters.
And the hills of Lebanon were about us.

We moved beside the weeping willows, and the reflections
of the willows were deep around us.

And while I steered the boat with an oar, my beloved took
her lute and sang thus:

What flower save the lotus knows the waters and the sun?
What heart save the lotus heart shall know both earth and sky?

Behold my love, the golden flower that floats 'twixt deep and high
Even as you and I float betwixt a love that has for ever been
And shall for ever be.

Dip your oar, my love,
And let me touch my strings.
Let us follow the willows, and let us leave not the water-lilies.

In Nazareth there lives a Poet, and His heart is like the lotus.
He has visited the soul of woman,
He knows her thirst is growing out of the waters,
And her hunger for the sun, though all her lips are fed.

They say He walks in Galilee.
I say He is rowing with us.
Can you not see His face, my love?
Can you not see, where the willow bough and its reflection meet,
He is moving as we move?

Beloved, it is good to know the youth of life.
It is good to know its singing joy.
Would that you might always have the oar,
And I my stringed lute,
Where the lotus laughs in the sun,
And the willow is dipping to the waters,
And His voice is upon my strings.

Dip your oar, my beloved,
And let me touch my strings.
There is a Poet in Nazareth
Who knows and loves us both.
Dip your oar, my lover,
And let me touch my strings.