Life At Dumka

Born at a village in Deoghar Just by the banks of the river Ajay, But reared and grew up at Dumka, A boy played I into the bushes, Roaming wild, Into the woods and the hills, The fields and fallows, Reading solitariness. Walking down the highlands and downlands, Into the bushes and briars, Upon the rocks and underneath the tree shades, I used to see the pace of life and the world, A world cut off from human habitation In solitude haunting the self And frightening sometimes, A loneliness bewitching. The cool shades of the banyan tree, The peepuls with the sadhna of the Buddha, The wild plum trees of a variety, Sometimes viewing life After climbing the hillock From which one day I had a narrow escape from a fall And after that never did I try to climb.