Palm Tree

Rabindranath Tagore 1861 (Kolkata) – 1941 (Kolkata)



Palm-tree: single-legged giant,
topping other trees,
peering at the firmament -
It longs to pierce the black cloud-ceiling
and fly away, away,
if only it had wings.

The tree seems to express its wish
in the tossing of its head:
its fronds heave and swish -
It thinks, Maybe my leaves are feathers,
and nothing stops me now
from rising on their flutter.

All day the fronds the windblown tree
soar and flap and shudder
as though it thinks it can fly,
As though it wanders in the skies,
travelling who knows where,
wheeling past the stars -

And then as soon as the wind dies down,
the fronds subside, subside:
the mind of the tree returns.
To earth, recalls that earth is its mother:
and then it likes once more
its earthly corner.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 18, 2023

40 sec read
334

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXAXXX BXBXXC XCXXXX XXXCXC
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 714
Words 136
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6

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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