A Song of the Coming Age

(Translated from Oriya by the Author)

THUNDERS roar and a blast blows overhead;
My days are closing like fading buds
And lose their existence in the lap of limitless Time
Like fish in the fathomless ocean!
Sorrows rush in flooded streams
And strike the heart with pitiless blows,
Shaking the limbs by a terrible shock
And shifting the earth away from my feet;
I cannot trust if I exist or not;
Still laughing at the world with a fierce laugh,
Quietly I work at my song of the Coming Age!

Gentle as the dew of Autumn morn
Desires countless come and vanish
Days passing after days silent as the shephali falling.
Thoughts that life could not stand
Burnt like a red-hot iron in the chest– 
Whither would it lead and with what result?
Would it burst like a thunderbolt
With a universal conflagration
Blowing off the sun and the moon?
And quietly I work at my song of the Coming Age!

I play the tune of a magnificent Life
That admits the entire living and lifeless universe as free;
A life defying death
Masters all mornings and bereavements;
Wherein dance the ripples of joy;
Unheeding the differences of colour or creed, the life that marches on
And admits a value for everything;
Every man acknowledges his own follies at the outset
Appreciates the sorrows of another at once;
And I, the poet, play the tune of that coming life.

I sing of a mighty Social Order
That provides a roof over each head;
Every boy or girl deserves a handful of rice;
And a pair of clothes is available to all;
No one is least debarred from schooling
Nor has the right to go unemployed– 
The State finds work for all
And recognises the claim of everybody to speak;
I sing the theme of that social order.

The society that denies the right to die of hunger
Or with a begging bowl;
Or to die in the ocean of wealth,
Where the weak defy fear
And the rich do not commit daylight robbery
And money cannot buy everything
The brute alone is not the master
And the fool alone does not boast of strength;
I work at the song of that imminent Order.

I sing the glories of a new Faith
Which nobody has the right to accept blindly
Or beat one’s head or break down with fear.
The faith that speaks the easiest language to be understood by all
And brings in freedom like the light and the air,
Determines the quantity of truth or lie
That creates the high or the low in life– 
I voice the benediction of that great faith
Where the whole Truth would raise its head
And the mansion of lie would instantly collapse;
Today I sing the song of that approaching Age!