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?'

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:13 min read
122

Quick analysis:

Scheme XABXCDEF XXXXEBF GXFGXD HH IXID XC XHXA XJXJ
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,327
Words 255
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 8, 7, 6, 2, 4, 2, 4, 4

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore FRAS was an Indian polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. more…

All Rabindranath Tagore poems | Rabindranath Tagore Books

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