buds into blossoms
No: it is not yours to open buds into blossoms
Shake the bud, strike it; it is beyond your power to make it blossom.
Your touch soils it, you tear its petals to pieces and strew them in the dust.
But no colours appear, and no perfume.
Ah! it is not for you to open the bud into a blossom.
He who can open the bud does it so simply
He gives it a glance, and the life-sap stirs through its veins.
At his breath the flower spreads its wings and flutters in the wind.
Colours flush out like heart-longings, the perfume betrays a sweet secret.
He who can open the bud does it so simply.
Rabindranath Tagore
I do not know how I came to know Rabindranath Tagore, where I first read him — have no recollection — but I believe it was this poem, from the second stanza on: HE WHO CAN OPEN THE BUD DOES IT SO SIMPLY.
from Fruit Gathering – XVIII
