'Ode To West Bengal' By Ink Soul Poem by Ink Soul

Ode to West Bengal by Ink Soul

O Eastern Soul, whose dawn the Ganges wakes
Whose breath through fields of golden harvest shakes
Thou whom the storm of monsoon never breaks
But feeds with rain the land the delta makes
Thou spirit robed in baul songs and in flakes
Of Tagore's light that every silence takes
And carves into a dance the river rakes
Where kashful bloom beside the silent lakes
Thy tiger walks where mangrove shadow quakes
And Durga rides the wind that no one fakes
O voice of flute that through the clay pot snakes
Rise now from every tear your struggle makes
Be thou the cry that even tyrant shakes
And bend the skies with all thy scarlet stakes

I've seen thee rise where fishermen once sung
And where the peasant sowed with bleeding lung
Thy truth in jute and fire-fed slogans sprung
In streets where youthful rebels' heads were hung
Thy soul has never wept, though grief be wrung
From widow's throat or bells by deathwards swung
For even then, thy chant in blood was flung
Like lightning from the lips of storm still young
O Bengal, thou whose every verse is strung
With swords of ink by which the law is stung
Thy feet may dance, but not on roses dung
Thy truth walks barefoot, neither laced nor clung
And though the world has bit thy sacred tongue
Still speaks thy sky with clouds forever rung

O Muse of mine, whose ink is storm and tea
Thou art no fading scent, no gentle lea
Thy rage is brewed in Howrah's silent plea
In Bose's breath and Netaji's decree—
The flame that taught the trampled soul to be
Not slave, but sovereign, proud and wildly free
Thy children's sweat is sweeter than the sea
And not a rose was born without a bee
Thy poets write with thunder, not with glee
Thy womb bore fire, not just philosophy
O Bengal, every moment burns in me
Each dawn a drum, each dusk a bleeding tree
Thy moon hangs bold where others bend the knee
Thou art the pulse of Time's eternity.

Now rise, O land of red and green and gold
Let not thy future, like thy past, be sold
Let not the tongue of greed thy hills enfold
Or silence choke the brahmachari's hold.
Break every chain the pale invader mold
Let Rabindranath's visions once more scold
And pierce through lies with Satyajit's wide cold
Let martyrs rise, their faces fierce and bold
Awake the words the elders never told
That youth may write their fate in sharper fold
No throne endures, no empire shall withhold
The flame that once in Chandernagore rolled
O Mother, thou art not a tale of old