Stray Bird 261-280 Rabindranath Tagore

261 Let your music, like a sword, pierce the noise of the market to its heart.

262 The trembling leaves of this tree touch my heart like the fingers of an infant child.

263 This sadness of my soul is her bride's veil. It waits to be lifted in the night.

264 The little flower lies in the dust. It sought the path of the butterfly.

265 I am in the world of the roads. The night comes. Open thy gate, thou world of the home.

266 I have sung the songs of thy day. In the evening let me carry thy lamp through the stormy path.

267 I do not ask thee into the house. Come into my infinite loneliness, my Lover.

268 Death belongs to life as birth does. The walk is in the raising of the foot as in the laying of it down.

269 I have learnt the simple meaning of thy whispers in flowers and sunshine--teach me to know thy words in pain and death.

270 The night's flower was late when the morning kissed her, she shivered and sighed and dropped to the ground.

271 Through the sadness of all things I hear the crooning of the Eternal Mother.

272 I came to your shore as a stranger, I lived in your house as a guest, I leave your door as a friend, my earth.

273 Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone, like the afterglow of sunset at the margin of starry silence.

274 Light in my heart the evening star of rest and then let the night whisper to me of love.

275 I am a child in the dark. I stretch my hands through the coverlet of night for thee, Mother.

276 The day of work is done. Hide my face in your arms, Mother. Let me dream.

277 The lamp of meeting burns long; it goes out in a moment at the parting.

278 One word keep for me in thy silence, O World, when I am dead, "I have loved."

279 We live in this world when we love it.

280 Let the dead have the immortality of fame, but the living the immortality of love.