শেষের মধ্যে অশেষ আছে,
       এই কথাটি  মনে
আজকে আমার গানের শেষে
       জাগছে ক্ষণে ক্ষণে।
                           সুর গিয়েছে থেমে তবু
                           থামতে যেন চায় না কভু,
                           নীরবতায় বাজছে বীণা
                                  বিনা প্রয়োজনে।
তারে যখন আঘাত লাগে,
             বাজে যখন সুরে--
সবার চেয়ে বড়ো যে গান
             সে রয় বহুদূরে।
                           সকল আলাপ গেলে থেমে
                           শান্ত বীণায় আসে নেমে,
                           সন্ধ্যা যেমন দিনের শেষে
                                  বাজে গভীর স্বনে।

I FELT I SAW your face, and I launched my boat in the dark.
Now the morning breaks in smiles and the spring flowers are in bloom.
Yet should the light fail and the flowers fade I will sail onward.
When you made mute signal to me the world slumbered and the
darkness was bare.
Now the bells ring loud and the boat is laden with gold.
Yet should the bells become silent and my boat be empty I will sail onward.
Some boats have gone away and some are not ready, but I will not
tarry behind.
The sails have filled, the birds come from the other shore.
Yet, if the sails droop, if the message of the shore be lost, I will sail onward.

INTRODUCTION
THE POET Kabir, a selection from whose songs is here for the first time offered to English readers, is one of the most interesting personalities in the history of Indian mysticism. Born in or near Benares, of Mohammedan parents, and probably about the year 1440, he became in early life a disciple of the celebrated Hindu ascetic Ramananda. Ramananda had brought to Northern India the religious revival which Ramanuja, the great twelfth- century reformer of Brahmanism, had initiated in the South. This revival was in part a reaction against the increasing formalism of the orthodox cult, in part an assertion of the demands of the heart as against the intense intellectualism of the Vedanta philosophy, the exaggerated monism which that philosophy proclaimed. It took in Ramanuja's preaching the form of an ardent personal devotion to the God Vishnu, as representing the personal aspect of the Divine Nature: that mystical 'religion of love' which every- where makes its appearance at a certain level of spiritual culture, and which creeds and philosophies are powerless to kill.
The images are all lifeless, they cannot speak: I know, for I have cried aloud to them.
The Purana and the Koran are mere words: lifting up the curtain, I have seen.'