Song of the Nightingale

 By: Mahakavi Laxmi Prasad Devkota

Translated by: Padma Devkota

[“Song of the Nightingale” is a sample of pure poetry. It presents a “globe of feelings” where the bird, symbolizing a poet, turns out to be a brief historian of the pangs of love felt by all young human hearts from time immemorial. Sita, Krishna, Helene, Padmini, Usha and all other lovers “since the beginning of the earth” have felt the pang of separation and wept. The nightingale has learned this doleful speech from them and sings. However, in the very expression of pain lies a remedy. Such speech, now art, is superior to life because life is both ugly and beautiful, but art is beautiful and healing.]

 

I.

What says this nightingale?

    Well-formed downs of tear cover the skies,

undulating like waves that billow within the heart

    towards the queen-moon of loveliness.

With grief-laden youths in mind the nightingale sings

    the essence of their plight;

she cleaves the silence with her voice,

    a heart-ravisher with her song.

 

II.

Like gods who churned nectar from the ocean,

    annihilating the essence of all words

to create an universal sound, tremulous and rhythmic,

    causing sweet sadness of the lonely heart to surge,

opening her calyx-beak she sings, O tearful softness!

    emitting subtle fluid fragrance,

awakening something within each heart,

    rendering the earth into a globe of feeling.

 

III.

While flowers speak through fragrance,

    the colorful language of passion is thirst.

This is the song of the air-borne weeping bumble-bee;

    this is the story of life.

This is indeed the laconic language of Prakriti and Purusha;

    this is reverberating youth.

This is a drop of Sruti essence, a poet's emotion,

    a vase of love.

 

IV.

This is the murmur of water;

    its woeful flow towards the ocean.

This is the language of night addressed to the moon,

    the shimmering of the dew,

the fluttering of the moth toward the flame,

    the flickering of the flame toward the moth.

This is the bubbling heart of the tidal wave

    recalling a dream.

 

V.

Light embraces shadow and plays on the water,

    memory on nothingness.

A sense of something being somewhere else but not with me

    distresses me somewhat.

"Come, come," a glimmer seems to call, how unforgettably elusive

    is this touch of imagination!

Deep embedded impressions quicken each aching cell,

    nourishing only the desire to weep.

 

VI.

Beautiful creation, Nature, or she,

    who, watchful at the crossroads,

having well-adorned herself, waiting restlessly

    with lowered head, not united with her lover as yet,

weeps within some deep spot of her heart

    beyond a cloud of tears.

The bird echoes and scatters around

    the language-transcending song of that heart.

 

VII.

Young queens of all times and places weep

    cleansing their loneliness.

The soul shatters the clod to express itself,

    triumphant over the fragrance of the flower.

What mellifluence is this? The passion in the nightingale's voice

    revivified in death!

Speak, speak, sweet nightingale! I too am with you

    having transcended meaning, enjoying myself.

 

VIII.

Opening the calyx is designing a cup

    that will contain the water drops.

The flowers that bloom will weep, their hearts brimming

    with tears that glisten, poor souls!

This bird, answering the sadness of the flower's heart,

    emits just two syllables

and governs the fine art of happiness and of sorrow

    of the entire world.

 

IX.

Where the clod touched by the sun's rays

    commenced the procreation of love,

seeking language the grass grew into a flower,

    singing a lachrymatory song;

turning into a bird, it spilled into the ears,

    expressing acute grief:

Language is the awakening of all times in the heart,

    a divine boon, a curse.

 

X.

"Plee-plee-plee" is the first word of the yet unexpressed heart,

    the thirst and water at birth;

this is the language of love when earthlings dream of the moon

    which, poised in the apex of the sky,

draws the heart with the essence of all loveliness.

    The nightingale begins to sing.

With what anguish she recalls all who have existed

    since the beginning of earth.

 

XI.

Usha wept longingly, twisting her white limbs

    on a bed of velvet flowers,

nostalgic for the meaningful dream, bereaved by the sunrise,

    having lost her heaven, poor girl!

All the flowers of the forest wept

    surveying the daughter of Banasura.

You must have learnt the song of sadness there,

    O say, sweet bird!

 

XII.

Even as the sweet breezes scattered and dropped

    the blossoming white and peanut-colored flowers,

profusely shedding tears of sorrow on the breast

    expressive with moonlight,

becoming someone's Radha in her heart,

    this young and divine Samyogita

bubbled up a flood of tears in a solitary murmur

    lost in this enchantment.

 

XIII.

Janaki chanted these very tunes to herself,

    lost in the memory of Lord Rama.

Krishna's flute sounded the same melody

    as it echoed on the banks of Yamuna.

Helene probably weeps similar sad tunes

    that turn love into tragedy,

shedding very lovely drops of sadness

    beyond the vapors of war.

 

XIV.

This is a pang, a sweet pang, of the greatest sorrow;

    this is a luxurious grief;

a globe, sweet and voiceless, which, if difficult to bear,

    may yet be rewarded with paradise.

This is the golden tinge of the body, this is the emotion,

    this the holy abode of Gauri and Bhola.

Sing your plee-plee-plee O nightingale! each heart must express

    its inner world of tribulations.

 

XV.

This is the graceful murmur of the calyx,

    the pupil drowned in a life of emotion;

this is the voice of thirst, the ancient story

    of Prakriti and Purusha, the dual creative forces;

this is sad youth, self-expressing love,

    the primal queen of lyrics;

this is the snowy peak, the refuge of the world,

    this is the heart-beat within.

 

XVI.

The shadow of the densely clouded sky may descend;

    pour, O pour profusely!

Lightning may flash, O start!

    with intermittent memories in the heart.

Drops may fall, trees and vines undulate,

    the air will carry the vapour.

Thus, the world may continue; weighed down hearts

    may again utter the same grief-laden songs.

 

XVII.

Hearts may invite hearts, water water drops,

    youth may invite youth;

the thirsty ones may speak, transcending time and cage,

    finding an outlet in music.

The grass-cutter's girl may sprinkle the water of her heart

    even as the sickle flashes;

whistling a new dream of the heart, someone may ascend the slope,

    a love-worshipping grass-cutter.

 

XVIII.

Pour, pour your full-throated voice forever,

    O nightingale in the cage!

The Vedas say as much—longing souls

    turned to the exquisite dawn;

enmeshing the heart here with argent moonlight,

    giving a little indication,

thirstily have I also uttered my song beyond meaning

    slightly transcending this clod.

 

1956.