TRANSLATOR’S DEDICATON

It was a tree;

A single tree on a lonely hill;

The rock was hard and barren;

The earth parched with thirst

And full of fissures.

With all its cruel zest

The sun did shoot its shafts—

Its burning rays.

Gusts of wind with fiery zeal

Belched their tongues of flame and scorched

The solitary tree.

The leaves were blown away and crushed;

As lifeless tiny sticks

The twigs had left

Its branches bare;

Trunk a mere stump.

Fain would it go to the woods—

Its real Home, and live

Among its dear mates—

The full—grown trees.

But stony hard was the hill

Wherein was stuck too fast

The root of the tree.

“O, for Death’ the tree gasped:

“Death, the kind Deliverer,

1 For me, and this hoary, horrid dame-the earth.

And all its minions.”

Hope? How dare it hope

When all was lost?

2 It could not even weep or sigh,

All leaves gone,

So it prayed

For Death- the Woodman’s axe—

3 To free it from

Living death.

But someone heard its unshed tears

And its silent sighs;

4 Quick with lightning speed, it came

From where nobody knows.

It was a cloud (or was it He?

For a formless form it was)

That rained, not cruel cuts of death

Through the sharp and shining axe,

5 But nectar drops of life.

The tree looked round and saw:

The hill was green with velvet grass

6 And white with silver streams

And it was pleased.

Soon the sap, the life-blood, coursed

Through all its parts:

The trunk, the branch, the twig

7 And then a little leaflet peeped

Out from a tiny twig.

But the leaflet trembles, it does not know

Whether with joy or fear—

Perhaps with both.

May not some naughty ape or boy

With mischief- monger’s urge

8 Clutch and tear the thing to pieces,

Ere it could grow?

So with 1Radha’s fervent heart and tender hand

It’s plucked and laid

At the feet of him, the Lord of my 2heart,

Who, like the cloud, though formless

Has the form

Of a mortal man.

And, like the cloud, again,

Chooses to be in the dark,

9 Unknown to the world.

So let Him be; but, deign, I pray,

To take the gift thus humbly laid

10 At Thy Lotus Feet---; from me.

The sick, the lame, the toddling babe,

Can climb a mountain high;

The dumb can speak, the blind can see

The pebble be a hill;

Ail this and more Thy Grace can do;

That Grace I humbly crave.

That is the one desire left,

11 All others have been shed.

His Mission He fulfilled,

And more and more He did it

By constant crusifixion. (crucifixion)

A mighty soul, my Master;

He enjoyed that life.

To Thy Lotus Feet, My Lord.