I WILL MEET one day the Life within me, the joy that hides in my life, though the days perplex my path with their idle dust. I have known it in glimpses, and its fitful breath has come upon me making my thoughts fragrant for a while. I will meet one day the Joy without me that dwells behind the screen of light-and will stand in the overflowing solitude where all things are seen as by their creator.
(From the Bengali of Satyendranath Datta) MY FLOWERS were like milk and honey and wine; I bound them into a posy with a golden ribbon, but they escaped my watchful care and fled away and only the ribbon remains. My songs were like milk and honey and wine, they were held in the rhythm of my beating heart, but they spread their wings and fled away, the darlings of the idle hours, and my heart beats in silence. The beauty I loved was like milk and honey and wine, her lips like the rose of the dawn, her eyes bee-black. I kept my heart silent lest it should startle her, but she eluded me like my flowers and like my songs, and my love remains alone.
