I FEEL THAT all the stars shine in me.
The world breaks into my life like a flood.
The flowers blossom in my body.
All the youthfulness of land and water smokes like an incense in my heart; and the breath of all things plays on my thoughts as on a flute.
II
When the world sleeps I come to your door.
The stars are silent, and I am afraid to sing.
I wait and watch, till your shadow passes by the balcony of night and I return with a full heart.
Then in the morning I sing by the roadside;
The flowers in the hedge give me answer and the morning air listens,
The travellers suddenly stop and look in my face, thinking I have called them by their names.
III
Keep me at your door ever attending to your wishes, and let me go about in your Kingdom accepting your call.
Let me not sink and disappear in the depth of langour.
Let not my life be worn out to tatters by penury of waste.
Let not those doubts encompass me,-the dust of distractions.
Let me not pursue many paths to gather many things.
Let me not bend my heart to the yoke of the many.
Let me hold my head high in the courage and pride of being your servant.

INTRODUCTION
THE POET Kabir, a selection from whose songs is here for the first time offered to English readers, is one of the most interesting personalities in the history of Indian mysticism. Born in or near Benares, of Mohammedan parents, and probably about the year 1440, he became in early life a disciple of the celebrated Hindu ascetic Ramananda. Ramananda had brought to Northern India the religious revival which Ramanuja, the great twelfth- century reformer of Brahmanism, had initiated in the South. This revival was in part a reaction against the increasing formalism of the orthodox cult, in part an assertion of the demands of the heart as against the intense intellectualism of the Vedanta philosophy, the exaggerated monism which that philosophy proclaimed. It took in Ramanuja's preaching the form of an ardent personal devotion to the God Vishnu, as representing the personal aspect of the Divine Nature: that mystical 'religion of love' which every- where makes its appearance at a certain level of spiritual culture, and which creeds and philosophies are powerless to kill.
The images are all lifeless, they cannot speak: I know, for I have cried aloud to them.
The Purana and the Koran are mere words: lifting up the curtain, I have seen.'

ভোরের বেলায় যে জন পাঠালে রঙিন মেঘের পাঁতি
আজ সে কি সাড়া দিয়েছে তোমায় শুভ্র আলোর সাথী।