১৬৩
নিমেষকালের অতিথি যাহারা পথে আনাগোনা করে,
       আমার গাছের ছায়া তাহাদেরি তরে।
যে জনার লাগি চিরদিন মোর আঁখি পথ চেয়ে থাকে
       আমার গাছের ফল তারি তরে পাকে॥  

NO: IT IS NOT yours to open buds into blossoms.
Shake the bud, strike it; it is beyond your power to make it blossom.
Your touch soils it, you tear its petals to pieces and strew them in the dust.
But no colours appear, and no perfume.
Ah! it is not for you to open the bud into a blossom.
He who can open the bud does it so simply.
He gives it a glance, and the life-sap stirs through its veins.
At his breath the flower spreads its wings and flutters in the wind. Colours flush out like heart-longings, the perfume betrays a sweet secret.
He who can open the bud does it so simply.

I WAS TO GO away; still she did not speak. But I felt, from a slight quiver, her yearning arms would say: 'Ah no, not yet.'
        I have often heard her pleading hands vocal in a touch, though they knew not what they said.
        I have known those arms to stammer when, had they not, they would have become youth's garland round my neck.
        Their little gestures return to remembrance in the covert of still hours, like truants they playfully reveal things she had kept secret from me.