I Won't Let You Go by Rabindranath Tagore Ketaki Kushari Dyson

imagined
    a swan gliding along the boundless sky:
    upheaval of large white wings in moonlight,
    myself stretched on its back, on a downy ride.
    Sleep crept on me like a pleasurable death.
    There were no hours, nor night-watchmen to call them.
    Night without end, disconnected from day.
    In the hushed, deserted world only the waves,
    the murmuring waters softly lapped my ears –
    sea of sleep dream-ruffled.
    Ages passed – I couldn’t count how many.
    Like a lamp without oil, the universe began to flutter.
    A giant shadow swallowed the firmament,
    and with head bowed, the universal night
    began the countdown to death: three, two, one…
    The moon began to wane, to disappear.
    The liquid murmur faded, fell silent.
    All the stars, unflinching, like ghosts’ eyes
    without mercy fixed themselves on me,
    the only creature in the entire heavens.
    Through that long night the billions of stars
    slowly went out, one after another.
    I opened my eyes wide, but received no light.
    Ice-hard, death-chill, that darkness
    couldn’t pierce my irises.

    Numbed, then, the bird-wings started to droop.
    The long neck plunged. The swan began to descend.
    For ten thousand years the deafening sound of a fall
    struck my ear-drums. The horrendous
    gaping night split into two.
    Suddenly all the memories of my life
    woke for a moment, and in a flash sped
    ahead of me, crashing to a thousand pieces.
    The hottest chase I gave them, but couldn’t retrieve
    a particle from that debacle, alas.
    Nowhere could I rest this body of mine,
    wholly wearied by my own iron weight.
    I wanted to cry, but found neither breath nor voice,
    my throat choked by darkness:
    solely within me it was happening – the cosmic collapse.
    The fierce velocity made me long and thin
    like the shrill whistle of a swift hurricane.
    Sharp as an arrow, as fine as a needle’s tip,
    piercing infinite time’s breast I went,
    my body and mind merged, reduced to a line.
    Gradually the limits of time dissolved.
    An instant and eternity became one.
    The ocean of empty space shrank to a point
    of the deepest, the most ultimate blackness.
    I was swallowed by that ocean of a point.
    The dark lost its darkness. There was none called ‘I’,
    yet in a curious way it seemed there was.
    Awareness, gagged, blind beneath unawareness,
    waited for someone or something, like a life-breath
    lingering eternally after death.
    I opened my eyes. Ganga flowed as before,
    and my boat was speeding westward to its mooring.
    Faint lamps flickered in cottages on the bank,
    and above, the moon was as honey-faced as ever.
    The earth kept her vigil, creatures asleep on her lap.
    [Ghazipur, 28 April 1888]

The Amatory Conversation of a Young Bengali Couple
    The Wedding Night
    GROOM .   Life to life    when first united
                        brings a peerless pleasure.
                  Forget all else!    With lifted eyes
                        let’s just gaze at each other.
                  Heart to heart    in shy confusion
                        in one spot joined together,
                  drugged by the same    fascination, let’s
                        suck honey from the same flower.
                  I’m but ashes,    ’cause since I was born
                        I’ve simply been on fire;
                  but your ocean    of love is boundless;
                        burning, I’ve come for water.
                  Just say this once,    ‘I too am yours
                        and truly desire none other.’
                  What? Sweetheart?    Wherefore do you rise?
    BRIDE .           I want to sleep with my Nan. [ She cries. ] 
    A Few Days Later
    GROOM .   Sweetest love,    forlorn in a corner,
                        wherefore all this