O Mother

[Guest guest]

O Mother, how long would you make me go about

Like the bull with blinkers on

Round and round the oil- press?

Tying me down to the trunk of this world

You are incessantly making me go around and round.

 

Due to what offence, may I ask,

Have you made me a slave to the six oil-men?

Births countless of beasts and birds and so forth

I have seen through,

 

Yet the cessation of this suffering is not in sight.

The word `Mother' is soaked in affection,

The way of the world is that

When the child weeps the Mother takes it on her lap.

 

Am I outside the world?

Countless sinners got delivered

By just chanting `Durga, Durga, Durga'

O Mother, for just once remove the blinkers from

my eyes

So that I may behold Your fearless feet.

Wicked sons there are, ever so many but never a

wicked Mother.

(Keep Prasad, your wicked son, bent at your feet.)

O Mother, Ramprasad hopes to stay at your feet

in the end.

 

- Ramprasad Sen