World Classics In Translations (WCT , poems) - Gkn Creations

Illusion And Reality

--Kabir

What is seen is not the Truth 
What is cannot be said 
Trust comes not without seeing 
Nor understanding without words 
The wise comprehends with knowledge 
To the ignorant it is but a wonder 
Some worship the formless God 
Some worship His various forms 
In what way He is beyond these attributes 
Only the Knower knows 
That music cannot be written 
How can then be the notes 
Says Kabir, awareness alone will overcome illusion

Remembrance

-- Alexander Pushkin

When, for the mortal one, is stilled the noisy day,
   And, on the silent city’s buildings,
The easy shadow of night is softly laid,
   And sleep – the prize for daily grindings,
Then in the silent air they painfully drag on –
   My hours, sleepless ones and endless:
Bites of the remorse-snake, in my heart, stronger burn
   In night’s unquestionable blankness.
My fancies boil. My mind, under a pine,
   Is overfilled with meditations;
Remembrance silently, before sad eyes of mine,
   Unrolls its scroll in lines’ successions.
And reading with despite the life, I had before,
   I curse the world, and tremble, breathless,
And bitterly complain, and shed my tears sore,
   But don’t wash out the lines of sadness.

The Enemy 

-- Charles Baudelaire


My youth was nothing but a black storm
Crossed now and then by brilliant suns.
The thunder and the rain so ravage the shores
Nothing's left of the fruit my garden held once.

I should employ the rake and the plow,
Having reached the autumn of ideas,
To restore this inundated ground
Where the deep grooves of water form tombs in the lees.

And who knows if the new flowers you dreamed
Will find in a soil stripped and cleaned
The mystic nourishment that fortifies?

—O Sorrow—O Sorrow—Time consumes Life,
And the obscure enemy that gnaws at my heart
Uses the blood that I lose to play my part.







The Afternoon of a Faun 

-- Stephane Mallarme



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Much adored face is forgotten



--Subramania Bharathiyar

Oh! I have forgotten my dear love's face my friend,
Tell me, with whom should I share this lament-
The heart though has not forgotten its fondness
Then why did my memories let me down?

The form that I perceive before me, 
Has not in sum all his beauty;
In those eyes set in that beauteous visage
I find not his sweet winsome smile!

My heart ceaselessly dwells on our relationship-
Haven't you noticed my constant talk 
about that illusionist?

But a sin committed by my eyes
Has caused his disappearance from memory
Have you detected such folly
In other women my friend?

Was there ever a bee that spurns honey?
A flower that disdains sunlight?
Or a crop that ignores rain? 
Any place else in this world? 

If I could forget Kannan's face
Of what further use are these eyes?
Alas! I don't even possess a picture 
How do I live out the rest of my life, in this state, my friend?

 

(Origin of Text)



Between going and coming

-- Octavia Paz



Between going and staying
the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.

All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can’t be touched.

Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.

Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.

The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.

I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.

The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause. 









Speak -


Faiz Ahmed Faiz


Speak, your lips are free. 

Speak, it is your own tongue. 

Speak, it is your own body. 

Speak, your life is still yours. 



See how in the blacksmith's shop 

The flame burns wild, the iron glows red;  

The locks open their jaws,  

And every chain begins to break. 



Speak, this brief hour is long enough 

Before the death of body and tongue:  

Speak, 'cause the truth is not dead yet,  

Speak, speak, whatever you must speak.








Part I Virtue The Praise of God



-Thiruvalluvar.











1.
A, as its first of letters, every speech maintains; 

The "Primal Deity" is first through all the world's domains.



(As the letter A is the first of all letters, so the eternal God is first in the world.) 




2.
No fruit have men of all their studied lore, 

Save they the 'Purely Wise One's' feet adore. 




(What Profit have those derived from learning, who worship not the good feet of Him who is possessed
of pure knowledge ? )




3.
His feet, 'Who o'er the full-blown flower hath past,' who gain 

In bliss long time shall dwell above this earthly plain. 




(They who are united to the glorious feet of Him who passes swiftly over the flower of the mind, shall
flourish long above all worlds.) 




4.
His foot, 'Whom want affects not, irks not grief,' who gain 

Shall not, through every time, of any woes complain. 




To those who meditate the feet of Him who is void of desire or aversion, evil shall never come. 




5.
The men, who on the 'King's' true praised delight to dwell, 

Affects not them the fruit of deeds done ill or well. 




The two-fold deeds that spring from darkness shall not adhere to those who delight in the true praise
of God.