Rabindranath Tagore - Brahmā, Vişņu, Śiva lyrics

I THE DARK In a worldless timeless lightless great emptiness Four-faced Brahma broods. Of a sudden sea of joy surges through his heart -- The ur-god opens his eyes. Speech from four mouths Speeds from each quarter. Through infinite dark, Through limitless sky, Like a growing sea-storm, Like hope never sated, His Word starts to move. Stirred by joy his breathing quickens, His eight eyes quiver with flame. His fire-matted hair sweeps the horizon, Bright as a million suns. From the towering source of the world In a thousand streams Cascades the primeval blazing fountain, Fragmenting silence, Splitting its stone heart. II THE MUSIC In a universe rampant With new life exhalant, With new life exultant, Vishnu spreads wide His four-handed blessing. He raises his conch And all things quake At its booming sound. The frenzy dies down, The furnace expires, The planets douse Their flames with tears, The world’s Divine Poet Constructs its history, From wild cosmic song Its epic is formed. Stars in their orbits, Moon sun and planets – He binds with his mace All things to Law, Imposes the discipline Of metre and rhyme. In the Manasa depths Vishnu watches - Beauties arise From the light of lotuses. Lakshmi strews smiles - Clouds show a rainbow, Gardens show flowers. The roar of Creation Resolves into music. Softness hides rigour, Forms cover power. . Age after age after age is slave to a mighty rhythm – At last the world-frame Tires in its body, Sleep in its eyes Slackens its structure, Diffuses its energy. From the heart of all matter Comes the anguished cry – ‘Wake, wake, great Shiva, Our body grows weary Of its law-fixed path, Give us new form. Sing our destruction, That we gain new life.’ III THE FIRE The great god awakes, His three eyes open, He surveys all horizons. He lifts his bow, his fell pinaka, He pounds the world with his tread. From first things to last it trembles and shakes And shudders. The bonds of nature are ripped. The sky is rocked by the roar Of a wave of ecstatic release. An inferno soars – The pyre of the universe. Shattered sun and moon, smashed stars and planets, Rain down from all angles, A blackness of all particles To be swallowed by flame, Absorbed in an instant. At the start of Creation There was a dark without origin, At the breaking of Creation There is fire without end In an all-pervading sky-engulfing sea of burning Shiva shuts his three eyes. He begins his great trance.