Ecstasy

(Rendered by B. R. Deshpande from the poem ‘Zapurza’ in Marathi)

Your day is done! O Mirth and Melancholy!
Laughter faints, subdued with run-away tears.
Blunted are the edgy thorns,
and velvet fur doth roughen.
Nothing to the eye appears,
light fades,
and darkling gloom is lost:
What is this state? What shall I say?
Ecstasy! O Ecstasy!
For Oh! of those whom mirth and melancholy afflicts–
What knowledge is theirs? What effects?
And though they laugh at us, we shall say without fear:
Greater sense in the senseless dwells
and is caught by those
whom the world regards not sane.
What are the words which clothe that sense
Ecstasy! O Ecstasy!
Across the hedges of the known,
with courage
a-leaping,
goes the lightning born of soulful clouds;
and dancing there doth glisten,
seeing the faint visions
that sing
mystic songs
which in voices sweet are heard,
Ecstasy! O Ecstasy!
How well the soil is unploughed left;
Doth a farmer there a title hold?
Haply one in a thousand might.
But from there to bring wild flowers
who shall obstruct thee.
if thou shalt sing the incantation–
Ecstasy! O Ecstasy?
Nature ever with the Soul
doth sport enchantingly;
The harmony of that sport to know,
is the object of all knowing;
The beauty of it to realise in the soul,
thou shalt sing with curious lips–
Ecstasy! O Ecstasy!
Where the Sun, the Moon and Stars
dancing all with brimful love,
do pluck the heavenly flowers;
there to go, if it certain be–
then be thou lone,
and moving whirl–
and whirling move–
and dancing, humming say–O say
Ecstasy! dear Ecstasy!