Me, myself and I Book

Seth's rhyming poems are hit and miss. At this point, reading rhyming poetry feels anachronistic... Especially when that poetry was written post-1970. That said, I was able to overcome my bias and enjoy a few of Seth's rhyming poems...
I had forgotten the time
Of year. Your rakhi came
Showing how things have changed
And are the same.

It was a contract of trust
With more than you. I know
I left my home too many
Year ago.

I place the golden thread
Across my wrist; that done
Struggle with my left hand
To tie it on.

You should have done that; I
Too have lost half the rite.
I promise you your gift
In '78.

Those future numerals
Look curious; and your brother
Too will be strange when next
We meet each other.

How we must both have changed
Only the custom stays,
Educing from the past
The undying days.
- Rakhi, for Aradhana


Wake up! The smudge of dawn
Low on the hills has shot
The bay with light. Don't miss
These minutes. This is not

Pure altruism, though.
I grant I want to see
Your face against the dawn.
Wake up, therefore, for me.
- Aubade


Yes, yes, thank you, thank you, yes, it has been
A very pleasant forty . . . fifty years.
Quite so, sir; how time does fly. I have seen
So many changes that the world appears
Peculiar now. But this place, not much change.
Well, yes, sir, that's correct, the lighting's new.
And now we're particular about checking; strange,
Recently, though, we have lost quite a few.
Marx? . . . Marx? . . . well, there was someone of that name;
Old gentleman he was. Sat at 10A,
Writing, writing, writing, always the same,
And foreign languages too, day after day,
Year after year. One say he left, and since then
No-one has ever heard of him again.
- Party for the Retirement of the Oldest-Serving British Museum Reading Room Book Attendant

Not surprisingly, my favourite poems are those with little or no rhyming...
Cold cold friend, Frost -
Night comes, and I
Am dispossessed.
Most cold, cold,
Is this night;
And my youth old,
My spirit lost.
I cannot rest.
I walk alone.
Frost, burn upon
My every bone.
- A Winter Word

I especially like Seth's translations, included in this volume. Here is a translation of a poem by Faize Ahmed Faize...
Last night your faded memory came to me
As in the wilderness spring comes quietly,
As, slowly, in the desert, moves the breeze,
As, to a sick man, without cause, comes peace.
- Last Night

Here is a translation of a poem by Heinrich Heine...
How similar they are, these two
Beautiful young figures, though one is far
Paler, sterner than the other; one might
Almost say, far more distinguished than him
Who held me in his arms - how gentle was
His smile, how blessed his gaze. It might have been
The poppies wreathing his brow touched my brow too
And strangely fragrant drove all pain from my soul.
But such reprieve is brief. I will be cured
Only when he, the other brother, so
Serious and pale, lowers his torch. Sleep
Is good, Death better; of course the best would be
ever to have been born.
- Sleep and Death