More Tagore

Wonder

Once again I wake up. The night withers. The universe shoots out petals. This is the wonder, unending.

So many continents have sunk, so many stars have lost luster, and aeons have elapsed! World-conquerors have lost their identities in the shadowy fringe of wordy chronicles. Nations erected obelisks on blood-smeared mud but only to quench the hunger of the dust. Amid these vast ruins, today my brow wears once again the morning sun’s mark, and that is the wonder unending!

I stand today in the vast hall of the starry heavens. I am one with the Seven Stars and with the mounts of the Himalayas. I am where the dramatic play of the wild fury of the sounding ocean breaks into frenzied waves. On the bark of this giant tree, this lord of the forest, are imprinted the signatures of centuries. It has witnessed the rolling down of many crowns, and under its shade I have the sanction to sit for another day.

And I know that within the womb of this day clatter the wheels of time invisible, inaudible.

Rabindranath Tagore
1932