Blissful-morning journey

The blissful-morning journey's begun; it leads ahead to the light;

The journey's started in the twilight; setting out to the joyfulness;

The auspicious rallies are all around; they're processions of felicity;

Man, your universe is now a stretch of a glorious millennium.

Perfumed with Amani Bengal's bronzed farmers are in the rally,

With ilish-panta bowl in hand ebony-beauty farmer-women too,

Holding their halkhata to their bosom frugal dealers fluster about;

Stretching over the entire sacred hours birdlike men have turned into hermits;

This morning men are corn-kings, women are harvest-queens.

Highways, townships, open fields and lands, market-places of this Bengal

All walks of people have come bare-footed, to this youthful procession;

Masked they've come, with mallets in hand—killers of countless monsters

Youths-n-old, blacksmiths, potters, and fishermen-weavers-farmers, all;

Human faces have now become one mass-face, all cheering 'Love you':

Human language transformed into love, all voices chorus 'Love you'.

Wings of thousand oars, punts with three poles, sails of thousand boats,

Cautious in storm and rolling water, Jatipita and Jatimata are holding the helm;

We're boat-cruisers, our known yet strange earth's full of wealth-harvest-blossom;

Up-and-down stream we travel as pilgrims; we're the couriers of millennium.

It emerged from copper-inscription, this fleet'll cross pass every shack-town-port;

Himalayan peak, myriad streams of Ganga-Padma, warbling Bay of Bengal at the north;

From Behula floating to Ma-Fatema, trouble-soothers, by the side of the rolling river;

This procession will stir all Bengalees' rebirth, the Shaheedminar of language martyrs;

All Bengali castes-and-creeds, birds and animals, and gulls glide into this procession.

As it advances

The procession will relit itself from monument of freedom, from eternal flame,

This procession will wind through all water, land and air passages of Bengal;

This procession won't stop, this procession won't stop ever;

Triumphant Bengalees know, winning Bengalees believe

The procession will retrieve days of change for all-blissful Bengalees every dawn.

This procession won't stop, this procession won't stop ever;

Translated by Abdus Selim

Mohammad Nurul Huda is a Bangladeshi poet and novelist, and the current Director General of Bangla Academy.

Abdus Selim is an academic, writer, and translator. He teaches English language and literature at Central Women's University. Email: selimminubd@gmail.com.