



Produced by Eric Eldred, Christine De Ryck, Charles Franks,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.










THE FUGITIVE

BY

RABINDRANATH TAGORE







TO

W.W. PEARSON



CONTENTS


    THE FUGITIVE--I.

    KACHA AND DEVAYANI

    TRANSLATIONS

    THE FUGITIVE--II.

    AMA AND VINAYAKA

    THE MOTHER'S PRAYER

    TRANSLATIONS

    THE FUGITIVE--III.

    SOMAKA AND RITVIK

    KARNA AND KUNTI

    TRANSLATIONS



1


Darkly you sweep on, Eternal Fugitive, round whose bodiless rush stagnant
space frets into eddying bubbles of light.

Is your heart lost to the Lover calling you across his immeasurable
loneliness?

Is the aching urgency of your haste the sole reason why your tangled
tresses break into stormy riot and pearls of fire roll along your path as
from a broken necklace?


Your fleeting steps kiss the dust of this world into sweetness, sweeping
aside all waste; the storm centred with your dancing limbs shakes the
sacred shower of death over life and freshens her growth.

Should you in sudden weariness stop for a moment, the world would rumble
into a heap, an encumbrance, barring its own progress, and even the least
speck of dust would pierce the sky throughout its infinity with an
unbearable pressure.


My thoughts are quickened by this rhythm of unseen feet round which the
anklets of light are shaken.

They echo in the pulse of my heart, and through my blood surges the psalm
of the ancient sea.

I hear the thundering flood tumbling my life from world to world and form
to form, scattering my being in an endless spray of gifts, in sorrowings
and songs.


The tide runs high, the wind blows, the boat dances like thine own desire,
my heart!

Leave the hoard on the shore and sail over the unfathomed dark towards
limitless