YOU ASK ME, mother, where I most wish to go. It is there from
where I first came to you. But I never can remember the place.
My father smiles at my trouble and says. 'It is beyond the clouds
in the land of the evening star.'
But I hear from you, it is deep in the bosom of the earth, from
where the flowers come away seeking the sun.
'That land lies unseen,' my auntie says, 'in the bottom of the
sea, hiding all the precious gems in its store.'
My brother pulls my hair and says, 'How can you find it, you
stupid one, for it is mingled in the air.'
It must be everywhere, it seems to me when I listen to you all.
Only my school-master shakes his head and says'It is nowhere.'

THE FIRST FLUSH of dawn glistens on the dew-dripping leaves of the forest.
The man who reads the sky cries:
'Friends, we have come!'
They stop and look around.
On both sides of the road the corn is ripe to the horizon,
the glad golden answer of the earth to the morning light.
The current of daily life moves slowly
between the village near the hill and the one by the river bank.
The potter's wheel goes round, the woodcutter brings fuel to the market, the cow-herd takes his cattle to the pasture,
and the woman with the pitcher on her head walks to the well.
But where is the King's castle, the mine of gold, the secret book of magic,
the sage who knows love's utter wisdom?
'The stars cannot be wrong,' assures the reader of the sky.
'Their signal points to that spot.'
And reverently he walks to a wayside spring
from which wells up a stream of water, a liquid light,
like the morning melting into a chorus of tears and laughter.
Near it in a palm grove surrounded by a strange hush stands a leaf-
thatched hut,
at whose portal sits the poet of the unknown shore, and sings:
'Mother, open the gate!'

এই আমি একমনে সঁপিলাম তাঁরে--
তোমরা তাঁহারি ধন আলোকে আঁধারে।
যখনি আমারি  ব'লে ভাবি তোমাদের
মিথ্যা দিয়ে জাল বুনি ভাবনা-ফাঁদের।
সারথি চালান যিনি জীবনের রথ
তিনিই জানেন শুধু কার কোথা পথ।
আমি ভাবি আমি বুঝি পথের প্রহরী,
পথ দেখাইতে গিয়ে পথ রোধ করি।
আমার প্রদীপখানি অতি ক্ষীণকায়া,--
যতটুকু আলো দেয় তার বেশি ছায়া।
এ প্রদীপ আজ আমি ভেঙে দিনু ফেলে,
তাঁর আলো তোমাদের নিক বাহু মেলে।
সুখী হও দুঃখী হও তাহে চিন্তা নাই;
তোমরা তাঁহারি হও, আশীর্বাদ তাই।