The Astronomer

Rabindranath Tagore 1861 (Kolkata) – 1941 (Kolkata)



I only said, "When in the evening the round full moon gets
entangled among the beaches of that Dadam tree, couldn't somebody
catch it?"
    But dada laughed at me and said, "Baby, you are the silliest
child I have ever known. The moon is ever so far from us, how could
anybody catch it?"
    I said, "Dada, how foolish you are! When mother looks out of
her window and smiles down at us playing, would you call her far
away?"
    Still dada said, "You are a stupid child! But, baby where
could you find a net big enough to catch the moon with?"
    I said, "Surely you could catch it with your hands."
    But dada laughed and said, "You are the silliest child I have
known. If it came nearer, you would see how big the moon is."
    I said, "Dada, what nonsense they teach at your school! When
mother bends her face down to kiss us, does her face look very
big?"
    But still dada says, "You are a stupid child."

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 18, 2023

52 sec read
138

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDECFGHIJKLMNBOP
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 904
Words 182
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 18

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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    In what year did Alexander Pope wrote "Farewell to London"?
    A 1744
    B 1725
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    D 1715