Page:The Bengali Book of English Verse.djvu/129

 PROFULLA RANJAN DAS. 1881-

 

I stepped into the dusty thoroughfare, Where men with weary footsteps trod the earth, And sought the secrets of their death and birth In heat and passion of the noon-day air! —In life that has been lived in black despair, Or in the splendour of the city's worth, Where mortals moving with no joy or mirth Have yet aspired to do, conceive, and dare!

And one above them all cried out to me, Alas, alas,—I gave a life's devotion, To drag the secrets of Eternity 