The Hand that made us is Divine

The spacious firmament on high

With all the blue ethereal sky

And spangled heavens, a shining frame,

Their great original proclaim,

The unwearied sun, from day to day,

Doth it’s Creator’s powers display,

And publishes to every land,

The work of an Almighty Hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail,

The moon takes up the wondrous tale,

And nightly to the listening Earth,

Repeats the story of her birth,

While all the stars that round her burn,

And all the planets, in their turn,

Confirm the tidings as they roll,

And spread the Truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all,

Move round this dark terrestrial ball?

What though no real voice, or sound,

Amidst their radiant orbs be found?

In reason’s ear they all rejoice,

And utter forth a glorious voice-

Forever singing, as they shine:

The Hand that made us is Divine.

(19^th Psalm paraphrased by Addison)

The love of God

a special poem by Dante Alighieri

The love of God, unutterable and perfect,
     flows into a pure soul the way that light
     rushes into a transparent object.
The more love that it finds, the more it gives
     itself; so that, as we grow clear and open,
     the more complete the joy of heaven is.
And the more souls who resonate together,
     the greater the intensity of their love,
     and, mirror-like, each soul reflects the other.


Happy Christmas to all!

A poem by Tagore

I wish to share a short poem by Rabindranath Tagore. It has been stored too long in my memory, and too long in my .doc files...

Sit Smiling (translated from Bengali to english, originally published in Geetanjali-poetry collection)

I boasted among men that I had known you
they see your pictures in all works of mine,
they come and ask me "Who is he?"
I know not how to answer them.
I say, "Indeed I cannot tell."
They blame me and go away in scorn.
- and You sit there smiling.

I put my tales of you into lasting songs.
the secret gushes out from my heart.
they come and ask me, "tell us all your meanings!"
I know not how to answer them.
I say, "Ah! who knows what they mean!"
they smile and go away in utter scorn.
- and You sit there smiling.

In my imagination, the narrator shapes and moulds figures in clay. In all his clay figures, in all his work, people see a glimpse of something. Something bordering on the mystical. Indeed, he cannot tell what it is or what it means. Just my interpretation.

Rabindranath Tagore was born in 1861 in Calcutta (British India), and is remembered for his awe-inspiring poetry and literary masterpieces in the Bengali language. His collection of songs- the Geetanjali, won the Nobel prize for literature in 1913. All his poems are an ode to love, life, joy and sorrow, through their simple words and musical mysticism.