The Boat

Rabindranath Tagore 1861 (Kolkata) – 1941 (Kolkata)



I must launch out my boat.
The languid hours pass by on the
shore---Alas for me!

The spring has done its flowering and taken leave.
And now with the burden of faded futile flowers I wait and linger.

The waves have become clamorous, and upon the bank in the shady lane
the yellow leaves flutter and fall.

What emptiness do you gaze upon!
Do you not feel a thrill passing through the air
with the notes of the far-away song
floating from the other shore?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 30, 2023

26 sec read
443

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXX XX XX XXXX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 460
Words 87
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 3, 2, 2, 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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