The Destitutes Poem by Kazi Nazrul Islam

Encircled by the water-waves of suffering -
the shoal of quicksand,
O insane! Who built a shack there
with your precious hand?
Lightening reveals a new attitude,
Leave this neighborhood, O destitute!
The flowing tear of motherly cloud
is raining over your head; and
The land over there is calling you,
waving its plants and trees' band.
Your daughters are flood-slaughtered -
weeping bitterly,
They are being invited today
by the ocean, motherly.
O boatman! O boatman!
Lift your sail - delay? - no more you can,
Your ride is like a stormy fan,
swinging on the waves of sea.
O boatman! Why more delay?
Lift your anchor, let it be free.
Here in the broken life's span,
your time is almost gone!
Look, your gazelle, O boatman,
eyes at the shore for a new dawn.
Your friends have already begun the voyage,
as the night sets its dark stage,
mat-bound your shoulder's edge,
Don't, any more, live in yawn!
To give up the tie of this bondage,
how much more you need to be overdrawn?
Diamond or jewels, you didn't seek;
Millionaire's rich you didn't cherish;
Your want is of a miserable meek -
That's as small as a potter's dish.
You sought to sleep in peace,
And, a small mat, even if torn, apiece,
A lamp offering light's kiss,
A small shack with a door, is what you wish!
Enough of death's hanging shadow, or illness' hiss,
No more burglars stealing your fish.
O boatman, sail your boat now
toward land, ashore.
From the hard soil
let your soft feet be bloodied, like never before!
You will roam around as a storm;
You will traverse through places of soft or rugged form;
Approaching rains, like dance they perform,
as they swirl from the Indus river's floor.
Come on, the riders of water now
to the land that invites you to its door.

[Original: Sharbohara (Bengali) , Translation by: Mohammad Omar Farooq]