Nursed for Ages
January 26, 2011
EXPATRIOT writes:
Perhaps this poem would be an inspiration to the woman who is considering abortion. I’ve always found it to be especially moving. It’s Rabindranath Tagore’s own English translation of his Bengali original. Actually I’ve seen several slightly different versions over the years, but this is the one I know by heart.
The Beginning
“Where have I come from, where did you pick me up?” the baby asked its mother.
She answered, half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast:
“You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling.
You were in the dolls of my childhood games, and when with clay I made the image of my god each morning, I made and unmade you then.
In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my mother you lived.
In the lap of the deathless spirit who rules our home you have been nursed for ages.
When in girlhood my heart was opening its petals, you hovered about it as a fragrance.
Your tender softness bloomed in my youthful limbs, like a glow in the sky before sunrise.
Heaven’s first darling, twin-born with the morning light, you have drifted down the stream of the world’s life, and at last you have stranded on my heart.
As I gaze on your face, mystery overwhelms me; you who belong to all have become mine.
For fear of losing you I hold you tight to my bosom.
What magic has snared the world’s treasure in these slender arms of mine?”
