Stealing the trumpet of Israfil,
How many times will I blow
Standing on the worm-eaten heart of civilization?
Like Prometheus, how many times will I steal
The fire from Paradise for men?
How many times will men go astray
And I will go on war having sword on my shoulder
Keeping aside my flower-cultivation?
How many times will earth become a hell
And I will hand over to men making it a paradise
With rain and love?
2.
Standing on the debris of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
I foretold men about the new civilization;
Snatching guns from their hands, I offered them
A plant and said, ‘Water it everyday; within short time
Earth will become Eden to amaze your eyes.’
Then they went to the Moon flying, and roaming
From planets to planets returned to earth
And found that Eden on earth full of green,
Crops, fruits, flowers and incense.
Their eyes got upturned with wonder.
After that, how many incidents took place!
Having reached the peak of success in art,
Literature and science, men fell down again
Into fathomless darkness which way Adam
Fell down on earth from heaven.
Again men’s earth is surrounded with war,
Death, blood-shedding, killing and darkness.
How many times will I steal the fire
From Paradise for men?
3.
Many a time I, like Orpheus, have played
The flute of love sitting on the banks of the Tigris,
The Euphrates, the Indus and the Nile.
Many a time I, like rain, have made the boughs
And roots of life wet which were prey to drought.
Many a time I, being the lyre of Spring,
Have enthralled the ears of civilization.
Yet men have gone astray again and again;
Taking stones at their hands, like Cain,
They have thrown on their brothers’ heads
And I, like a madman, have rushed to all the doors
Of men and shouted, ‘Beware, brothers!
Tidal surge will come to submerge you;
Come bag and baggage and take shelter
into the Ark of Noah.’
Hearing my words, they all have burst into laughter
And laughing like Kenan, they have been drowned
Into the inevitable ruin.
Alas! Forgetting to compose the lines of my poems,
How many times will I be the postman
To distribute the bad news bearing letters
From door to door?
4.
Again and again men go astray.
Again and again men go on evil paths.
Again and again men go on wrong paths.
On the bank of the Ganges I have seen
The horrible human sacrifice.
I have seen the savage laughter of suttee
On the burning funeral pyre.
Dumbfounded I have seen the thick darkness of Arab;
I have seen the play of burying the girl-infants alive
Into the sands.
I have seen the evil palace of the Aztec
Built with the skulls of women and children.
I have seen the tearful eyes of slaves
On the banks of the Mississippi.
I have seen in the country of great Mao Tse Tung
The festival of killing girl-embryo
In the name of one child policy.
I have seen the witch Suu Kyi’s wild madness
For killing the innocent people in Myanmar.
Again and again men go astray.
Again and again men go on evil paths.
Again and again men go on wrong paths.
5.
When men go astray, women suffer;
Losing their chastity and respect,
They become the goods of pleasure on earth.
When men go astray,
The savage slavery come back in a new guise
And invaluable men are sold cheap
In the labor-markets of the capitalists.
And when men become inhuman,
Earth gets defeated to evil;
Those who were free lose their freedom;
Those who sang songs become dumb;
Those who blossomed flowers pick up revolver,
Sten gun, bomb and gun-powder at their hands.
When men become inhuman, beasts of the forests
Flee in the deep forests in shame.
6.
I tell men to be men again.
I tell men to go back to their golden past again.
Or I tell men to build again a new civilization.
How many times will I tell?
