Playthings

Rabindranath Tagore 1861 (Kolkata) – 1941 (Kolkata)



Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the morning.
    I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig.
    I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour.
    Perhaps you glance at me and think, "What a stupid game to spoil your morning with!"
    Child, I have forgotten the art of being absorbed in sticks and mud-pies.
    I seek out costly playthings, and gather lumps of gold and silver.
    With whatever you find you create your glad games, I spend both my time and my strength over things I never can obtain.
    In my frail canoe I struggle to cross the sea of desire, and forget that I too am playing a game.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 18, 2023

38 sec read
166

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDECFG
Characters 688
Words 130
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 8

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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