Religion
Song IX: O How may I ever express that secret word?
Translated by Rabindranath Tagore, with Evelyn Underhill (1915) · From Songs of Kabir (1915)
O How may I ever express that secret word?
O how can I say He is not like this, and He is like that?
If I say that He is within me, the universe is ashamed:
If I say that He is without me, it is falsehood.
He makes the inner and the outer worlds to be indivisibly one;
The conscious and the unconscious, both are His footstools.
He is neither manifest nor hidden, He is neither revealed nor unrevealed:
There are no words to tell that which He is.
Cite this poem
MLA
Kabir. “Song IX: O How may I ever express that secret word?” Translated by Rabindranath Tagore, with Evelyn Underhill. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/kabir/8/.
Chicago
Kabir. “Song IX: O How may I ever express that secret word?” Translated by Rabindranath Tagore, with Evelyn Underhill. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/kabir/8/.
Read this poem with the Codex →
More by Kabir
- Song XV: Where Spring, the lord of the seasons, reigneth
- Song XXXIV: How could the love between Thee and me sever?
- Song LIII: What is that flute whose music thrills me with joy?
- Song LXXIII: The palanquin came to take me away to my husband's home
- Song XCII: The woman who is parted from her lover spins at the spinning wheel.