Poverty 
Kazi Nazrul Islam

[(Original: Daridro)
Translation: Kabir Chowdhury]

 O poverty, thou hast made me great.
 Thou hast made me honoured like Christ 
 With his crown of thorns. Thou hast given me 
 Courage  to reveal all. To thee I owe 
 My insolent, naked eyes and sharp tongue.
 Thy curse has turned my violin to  a sowrd. 

 O proud saint, thy terrible fire
 Has rendered my heaven barren.
 It has prematurely dried beauty.
 My feelings and my life . 
 Time and again I stretched my lean, cupped hands
 To accept the gift of the beautiful.
 But those hungry ones always came before me.
 And did snatch it away ruthlessly,
 Now my word of imagination is 
 Dry as a vast desert.
 And my own beautiful!  

 My yellow-stalked pensive desire
 Wants to blossom like the fragrant shafali.
 But thou cruel one 
 Dost ruthlessly break the soft stalk
 As the woodcutter chopsthe branches
 Off the trees. My heart  grows tender
 Like the autum morning 
 It fills with love 
 Like the dew-laden earth.
 But thou art the blazing sun 
 And thy fiery heart dries up the tiny drop of the earth 
 I grow listlessin the shadowy skirt of the earth 
 And my dreams of beauty and goodness vanish!
 With a bitter tongue thou askest, 
 "What's the use of nectar?
 It has no sting, no introxication, no madness it. 
 The search for heaven's secred drink
 Is not for the in this sorrow-filled earth.

 Thou art the surpent, born in pai .
 Thou will sit in the bower of thorns
 And weave the garland of flowers.
 I put on thy forhead the sing
 Of suffering and woe."

 So I sing, I weave a garland,
 While my throat is on fire,
 And my serpent daughter bites me all over!
 
 O unforgiving Durbasha! thou wanderest 
 From door to door with thy beggar's bowl. 
 Thou goes to the peaceful abode of 
 Some sleeping happy couple
 And sternly callest, "O fool,
 Knowest thou, that this earth is not anybody's 
 Pleasure bower for luxury adn ease. 
 Here is sorrow and separation
 And a hundred wants and disease. 
 Under the arms of the beloved 
 There are thorns in the bed, 
 And now must thou prepare
 To savour these." The unhappy home
 Is shattered in a moment,
 And woeful laments rend
 The air. The light of joy is extinguished
 And endless nights descends.

 Thou walkest the road alone 
 Lean, hungryand starved.
 Suddenly some sight makes thy eyebrows
 Arch in annoyance and thine eyes
 Blazeforth-firesof anger!
 And lo! famine, pestilence and tornado
 Visit the country, pleasuregarden burn,
 Palaces tumble, thy law
 Knows nothing but death and destruction. 
 Nor for theethe license of courtesy.
 Thou seekest the unashaamed revelation of stark nakedness.
 Thou knowest no timid hesitation or polite embarrassment
 Thou dost raise high the lowly head.
 At thy signal the travellers on the road to death
 Put round their neck the fatal noose
 With cheerful smile on their faces!
 Nursing the fire of perennial want in their bosom
 They worship the god of death in fiendish glee !
 Thou tramplest the crown of Lakshmi
 Under thy feet. What tune
 Dost thou want to wiring
 Out of her violine? At thy touch
 the music turns into criesof anguish!
 Waking up in the morning Iheard yesterday 
 The plantive Sanai mourning those
 Who had not returned yet, At home
 The singer cried for them and wept bitter tears 
 And floating with that music the soul of the beloved
 Wandered far to the distant spot 
 Where the love anxiously waited.
 This morning I got up 
 And heard the Sanai again 
 Crying as mournfully as ever.
 And the pensive Shefalika,
        sad as a widow's smile,
 Falls in clusters, spreading 
 A mild fragrance in the air.
 Today the butterfly dances in restless joy
 Numbing the flowers with its kisses. 
 And the wings of the bee
 Carry the yellow of the petals, 
 It's body covered with honey.

 Life seems to have sprung up suddenly
 On all sides. Asong of welcome
 Comes unconciously to my lips
 And unbidden tears spring to my eyes
 Some one seems to have entwined my soul
 With that of mother-earth. She comes forward
 And with her dust-adorned hands
 Offers me her presents.
 It seems to me that she is the youngest daughterof mine,
 My darling child!
 But suddenlyI wake up with a start. O cruel saint, being my child,
 Thou weepest in my home, hungry and stoned!

 O my child, my darling one 
 I could not give thee even a drop of milk 
 No right have I to rejoice.
 Poverty weeps within my doors forever 
 As my spouse and my child.
 Who will play the flute?
 Where shall I get the happy smile
 Of the beautiful? Where the honeyed drink 
 I have drunk deep the hemlock
 Of bitter tears!

 And still even today
 I hear the mournful tune of the Sanai.