Analysis of Come, Let Us Go For A Walk, O Mind

Come, let us go for a walk, O mind,
to Kali, the Wish-fulfilling Tree,
And there beneath It gather the four fruits of life.
Of your two wives, Dispassion and Worldliness,
Bring along Dispassion only, on your way to the Tree,
And ask her son Discrimination about the Truth.

When will you learn to lie, O mind,
in the abode of Blessedness,
With Cleanliness and Defilement on either side of you?
Only when you have found the way
To keep these wives contentedly under a single roof,
Will you behold the matchless form of Mother Shyama.

Ego and Ignorance, your parents,
instantly banish from your sight;
And should Delusion seek to drag you to its hole,
Manfully cling to the pillar of Patience.
Tie to the post of Unconcern the goats of Vice and Virtue,
Killing them with the sword of Knowledge if they rebel.

With the children of Worldliness, your first wife,
plead from a goodly distance
And, if they will not listen,
drown them in Wisdom's sea.
Says Ramprasad: If you do as I say,
You can submit a good account,
O mind, to the King of Death,
And I shall be well pleased with you
and call you my darling.

[Translated from Bengali by Elizabeth U. Harding]