Kazi Nazrul Islam

24 May 1899 - 29 August 1976 / Bardhaman / India

Song Of The Peasant

Arise, O tiller of the soil,
Hold the plough in your iron grip.
Since we are all going to die
Let us die a glorious death.

We had our fields green with paddy
Our country, once upon a time, was full of laughter
But the robbers from the shopkeepers' nation
have plundered us bare
Today our misery is endless indeed.
They are plucking out the golden hairs from my
mother's head

In a million hands, the brutes.
My mother's tears today are mingling
With the salty waters of the seven seas,
And are making it saltier still.

Comrade we were very happy then,
We were the heart and soul of the country.
There was then song in our lips and paddy in our granary
But where has the song fled today and where
the peasant?

Comrade, our blood has gone today
To fill the bottles of their drink.

Today the rich, the greedy merchant and the
profiteer have surrounded us,
And are sucking our blood like leeches.

They are robbing us of the food from our plates,
They are playing with the clothes snatched off
From the body of our chaste maidens.
Our babies are dying in our arms, today, Comrade,
And we are powerless to resist.
We are the true children of the soil,
green as the young grass,
Rama, the enemy of Ravana, is lying hidden in
Our beauty,
And Sita is none other than the harvest we reap
at the point of our plough.
Yet today Ravana is robbing us of Sita,
the paddy of our fields.
Comrade, we are martyrs sacrificing our lives
In the Mecca of our fields.
The harvest reaped of our blood
Is being robbed by the Satan.
Where can we go, Comrade?
Fire awaits us at home
And a raging storm outside.
Today the gang of Yazid has surrounded us
Killing us mercilessly.

Arise today, O tiller of the soil,
When we have lost all, what else is there to fear?
By the strength of hunger
We shall conquer the world of joy.
Today, Comrade, we shall make the robber-king
bow down and yield.
Let the civilized world watch in wonder
The power of us, we, the tillers of the soil.
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