NNALE EN JEEVAN Cover -Rajesh Cherthala
The New Year
LIKE FRUIT, shaken free by an impatient wind
Thou art no dreamer afloat on a languorous breeze,
Thine is a majestic march, o terrible Stranger,
New Year’s Eve
The end of the year fell chilly
The windows stained with story,
Arch and aisle and rafter
Crown and tiar and mitre
In aisles that emperors vaulted
‘O thou that seest our sorrow,
‘Lo, morning over our border
‘We are come to the end appointed
‘The peoples knelt down at our portal,
Old tunes of the sacred psalters,
Tagore
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.
lingering among the hesitant whisper and hum
of an uncertain season.
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.
A. E. Housman
Between a moon and a moon;
Thorough the twilight shrilly
The bells rang, ringing no tune.
The walls with miracle scored,
Were hidden for gloom and glory
Filling the house of the Lord.
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.
Were starry with gold and gem;
Christmas never was whiter
Than fear on the face of them.
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:
It fares with us even thus:
To-day we are gods, to-morrow
Hell have mercy on us.
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.
With sands not many to run:
Divinities disanointed
And kings whose kingdom is done.
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,’
Set to wild farewells;
And I left them there at their altars
Ringing their own dead knells.
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