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Summer’s Pioneers

Summer’s Pioneers, Rabindratath Tagore

Tired of waiting, you burst your bonds,

Impatient flowers, before the winter had gone

Glimpses of the unseen comer came into your wayside watch

And you rushed out running and panting,

O restless jasmines, O troop of riotous roses!

You were the first to march to the breach of death.

Your clamour of colour and perfume troubled the air.

You laughed and pressed and pushed each other,

Bared your breasts and dropped to the ground in heaps.

The summer will come in its time

Sailing in the flood tide of the South Wind

But you never counted slow moments to be sure of him.

You recklessly spent your all in the road in terrible joy of faith.

You heard his footsteps from afar

And flung your mantle of death for him to tread on.

Your bonds break even before the rescuer is seen,

You make him your own ere he can come and claim you.