I Have Seen Bengal’s Face By Jibananando Das
Because I have seen Bengal’s face I will seek no more;
The world has not anything more beautiful to show me.
Waking up in darkness, gazing at the fig-tree, I behold
Dawn’s swallows roosting under huge umbrella-like leaves. I look around me
And discover a leafy dome-Jam, Kanthal, Bat, Hijol and Aswatha trees-
All in a hush, shadowing clumps of cactus and zedoary bushes.
When long, long ago, Chand came in his honeycombed boat
To a blue Hijal, Bat and Tamal shade near the Champa, he too sighted
Bengal’s incomparable beauty. One day, alas. In the Ganguri,
On a raft, as the waning moon sank on the river’s sandbanks,
Behula too saw countless aswaths bats besides golden rice fields
And heard the thrush’s soft song. One day, arriving in Amara,
Where gods held court, when she danced like a desolate wagtail,
Bengal’s rivers, fields, flowers, wailed like strings of bells on her feet.
Summary: Jibananando Das here describes the beauty as well as lost glory of Bengal. The poet wants to see a glorious Bengal, a country that had high glory in the antiquity. The poet opens the poem with the description of the dawn when morning bird is sitting beneath a big leaf. He can see a lot of other trees and herbs. Then he names some of the least looked upon reminds us the heritage of the area. He says that this beauty of the Bengal shall be for even and so he does not want to go anywhere.