If love be denied me ...by Rabindranath Tagore

If love be denied me 
then why does the morning 
break its heart in songs, 

and why are these whispers 
that the south wind scatters
among the newborn leaves ?

If love be denied me
then why does the midnight
bear in yearning silence the pain of the stars ?

And why does this foolish heart
recklessly launch its hope on the sea
whose end it does not know ?

~ Rabindranath Tagore
from Lover's Gift and Crossing,
published 1918