Keep Me Fully Glad

Keep me fully glad with nothing.
Only take my hand in your hand.
In the gloom of the deepening night take up my heart
And play with it as you wish.
Bind me close to you with nothing.
I will spread myself out at your feet and lie still.
Under this clouded sky I will meet silence with silence.
I will become one with the night clasping the earth in my breast.
Make my life glad with nothing.
The rains sweep the sky from end to end.
Jasmines in the wet untamable wind revel in their own perfume.
The cloud-hidden stars thrill in secret.
Let me fill to the full my heart with nothing but my own depth of joy.
~ A poem by Rabindranath Tagore

HOPE

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me

Emily Dickinson

Only Thee

That I want thee, only thee---let my heart repeat without end.
All desires that distract me, day and night,
are false and empty to the core.
As the night keeps hidden in its gloom the petition for light,
even thus in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry
---`I want thee, only thee'.
As the storm still seeks its end in peace
when it strikes against peace with all its might,
even thus my rebellion strikes against thy love
and still its cry is
---`I want thee, only thee'

Rabindranath

Who is This?

I came out alone on my way to my tryst.
But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?
I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not.
He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger;
he adds his loud voice to every word that I utter.
He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame;
but I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company.

Rabindranath Tagore