You Did Not Find Me, By Rabindranath Tagore

You did not find me, you did not.

I sat absent minded in a corner,

the lamp had gone out.

You went away seeing no one.

You came to the door

and then forgot,

it would have opened had you knocked.

The boat of my fate ran aground

on this tiny rock.

On a stormy night I sat counting time,

but I failed to hear your chariot’s sound.

Shuddering in the thunder’s rumbling noise

I pressed my hands tightly round my breast.

In the sky the fiery flame of lightning

wrote a curse, then disappeared.

--TRANSLATED FROM THE BENGALI BY PRATIMER BOWES

From “World Poetry,” edited by Katharine Washburn, John S. Major and Clifton Fadiman (W.W. Norton: 1,338 pp., $45)