O YOU shaggy-headed banyan tree standing on the bank of the pond, have you forgotten the little child, like the birds that have nested in your branches and left you?
Do you not remember how he sat at the window and wondered at the tangle of your roots that plunged underground?
The women would come to fill their jars in the pond, and your huge black shadow would wriggle on the water like sleep struggling to wake up.
Sunlight danced on the ripples like restless tiny shuttles weaving golden tapestry.
Two ducks swam by the weedy margin above their shadows, and the child would sit still and think.
He longed to be the wind and blow through your rustling branches, to be your shadow and lengthen with the day on the water, to be a bird and perch on your top-most twig, and to float like those ducks among the weeds and shadows.

YOU CAME down from your throne and stood at my cottage door.
I was singing all alone in a corner, and the melody caught your ear. You came down and stood at my cottage door.
Masters are many in your hall, and songs are sung there at all hours. But the simple carol of this novice struck at your love. One plaintive little strain mingled with the great music of the world, and with a flower for a prize you came down and stopped at my cottage door.

কে বলে সব ফেলে যাবি
             মরণ হাতে ধরবে যবে।
জীবনে তুই যা নিয়েছিস
             মরণে সব নিতে হবে।
  এই ভরা ভাণ্ডারে এসে
  শূন্য কি তুই যাবি শেষে।
  নেবার মতো যা আছে তোর
             ভালো করে নেই তুই তবে।
আবর্জনার অনেক বোঝা
             জমিয়েছিস যে নিরবধি,
বেঁচে যাবি, যাবার বেলা
             ক্ষয় করে সব যাস রে যদি।
  এসেছি এই পৃথিবীতে,
  হেথায় হবে সেজে নিতে,
  রাজার বেশে চল্‌ রে হেসে
             মৃত্যুপারের সে উৎসবে।