Stray Bird 161-180 Rabindranath Tagore

161 The cobweb pretends to catch dew-drops and catches flies.

162 Love! when you come with the burning lamp of pain in your hand, I can see your face and know you as bliss.

163 "The learned say that your lights will one day be no more." said the firefly to the stars. The stars made no answer.

164 In the dusk of the evening the bird of some early dawn comes to the nest of my silence.

165 Thoughts pass in my mind like flocks of ducks in the sky. I hear the voice of their wings.

166 The canal loves to think that rivers exist solely to supply it with water.

167 The world has kissed my soul with its pain, asking for its return in songs.

168 That which oppresses me, is it my soul trying to come out in the open, or the soul of the world knocking at my heart for its entrance?

169 Thought feeds itself with its own words and grows.

170 I have dipped the vessel of my heart into this silent hour; it has filled with love.

171 Either you have work or you have not. When you have to say, "Let us do something," then begins
mischief.

172 The sunflower blushed to own the nameless flower as her kin. The sun rose and smiled on it, saying, "Are you well, my darling?"

173 "Who drives me forward like fate?"

"The Myself striding on my back."

174 The clouds fill the watercups of the river, hiding themselves in the distant hills.

175 I spill water from my water jar as I walk on my way, Very little remains for my home.

176 The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words that are clear; the great truth has great silence.

177 Your smile was the flowers of your own fields, your talk was the rustle of your own mountain pines, but your heart was the woman that we all know.

178 It is the little things that I leave behind for my loved ones,-- great things are for everyone.

179 Woman, thou hast encircled the world's heart with the depth of thy tears as the sea has the earth.

180 The sunshine greets me with a smile. The rain, his sad sister, talks to my heart.