Analysis of Ungrateful Sorrow
Rabindranath Tagore 1861 (Kolkata) – 1941 (Kolkata)
At dawn shey(1) departed
My mind tried to console me -
' Everything is Maya(2)'.
Angrily I replied:
'Here's this sewing box on the table,
that flower-pot on the terrace,
this monogrammed hand-fan on the bed---
all these are real.'
My mind said: 'Yet, think again.'
I rejoined: ' You better stop.
Look at this storybook,
the hairpin halfway amongst its leaves,
signaling the rest is unread;
if all these things are 'Maya',
then why should 'shey' be more unreal?'
My mind becomes silent.
A friend arrived and says:
'That which is good is real
it is never non-existent;
entire world preserves and cherishes it its chest
like a precious jewel in a necklace.'
I replied in anger: 'How do you know?
Is a body not good? Where did that body go?'
Like a small boy in a rage hitting his mother,
I began to strike at everything in this world
that gave me shelter.
And I screamed:' The world is treacherous.'
Suddenly, I was startled.
It seemed like someone admonished me :' You- ungrateful ! '
I looked at the crescent moon
hidden behind the tamarisk tree outside my window.
As if the dear departed one is smiling
and playing hide-and-seek with me.
From the depth of darkness punctuated by scattered stars
came a rebuke: 'when I let you grasp me you call it an deception,
and yet when I remain concealed,
why do you hold on to your faith in me with such conviction?'
Scheme | XABXCDEF XXXXEBF GXFGXD HH IXID XC XHXA XJXJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111010 1111101 10110 100101 111011010 11011010 11011101 1111 1111101 1011101 11110 01110111 10001101 1111110 11111101 110110 010101 111111 11101010 0101010100111 1010100010 1010101111 101011111101 101100110110 10111110011 11110 011011100 1001110 111101011010 1110101 10010100111110 11010101110 01010111 1011101001101 10011111111111010 01110101 111111110111010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,327 |
Words | 255 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 7, 6, 2, 4, 2, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 37 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 130 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:13 min read
- 122 Views
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