|
|
|
|
Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SICKBED 5, by RABINDRANATH TAGORE Poet's Biography First Line: Under this vast universe / pain's mill wheel rotates | |||
November 4, 1940 Under this vast universe pain's mill wheel rotates, grinds planets and stars to powder. Sparks flash, scatter suffering on every side, ash-webs from annihilated worlds permeating in an instant. In the mills of oppression, in cells of luminous consciousness, pikes and knives clank, wound-blood spurts. The tiny human body— infinite, its power to face pain. In the assembly of creation and annihilation, this small vessel of blood offered to the Tantric circle reels, drunken, rapturous. The clay cup of the body fills with incoherent blood, floods with tears. Every moment unfolds unending worth to consciousness, invincible. The body's pain-hallowed fire, the offering sacrificedto ascetic acts of stars, is incomparable. Such enduring vigor, compassion without fear, indifference to death, such triumphant processions: assemblies trampling beds of flame to find pain's limits— on a fevered, unnamed pilgrimage, together, from path to path, penetrating caves of fire, to find care's origins, provisions of unending love. First Published in The Kenyon Review, Volume 23 #2 (Spring 2001). www.kenyonreview.org/roth | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE PHANTOM-LOVER [OR, WOOER] by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THE WITCH by MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE FREEDOM by RALPH WALDO EMERSON HENRY WARD BEECHER by CHARLES HENRY PHELPS A RECIPE FOR SALAD by SYDNEY SMITH THE ALCHEMIST by ST. CLAIR ADAMS |
| |