Rabindranath Tagore(1861–1941):The essential Tagore
A Hundred Years from Now
A hundred years from now
Who could you be
Reading my poem curiously
A hundred years from now!
How can I transmit to you who are so far away
A bit of the joy I feel this day,
At this new spring dawn,
The beauty of flowers this day
Songbirds that keep chirping away
Of the crimson glow of the setting sun.
How can I lave them all with my love,
And hope you will make them your own
A hundred years from now?
However, if you keep your southern door ajar,
Sit by your window and look afar
View the horizon stretch endlessly
And imagine this possibility—
That one day a hundred years from now,
Excitement from some heaven above could flow
Could strike your inmost heart and make it glow,
That on a bright spring day
When you were feeling restless and carefree— Suddenly,
There could blow with the southern breeze,
Impatient and eager to please,
Flying on restless wings,
Full of pollen and the scent of flowers,
And of what youth desires,
An impulse from me that could make your soul sway.
At a time a hundred years away!
A soul carried away by the tunes
Overwhelmed by the flowers on display,
Had then burst into poetry,
Lovingly,
A hundred years from now!
A hundred years from now
Who will that new poet be Singing in your festivals merrily?
I send him my spring greetings—
Hoping he will make them his own
Let my spring song resound in your spring day
For a while let my tune stay—
In the fluttering of your soul, the humming of bees,
And murmuring in leaves,
A hundred years from now!
("Aaji Hote Shata Barsha Pare," from Chitra?)
Translated by Fakrul Alam
The Gardener 85 (1913)
By Rabindranath Tagore
Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred years.