A Song of Kabir
Oh, light was the world that he weighed in his hands!Oh, heavy the tale of his fiefs and his lands!He has gone from the guddee and put on the shroud,And departed in guise of bairagi avowed!
Now the white road to Delhi is mat for his feet.The sal and the kikar must guard him from heat.His home is the camp, and the waste, and the crowd--He is seeking the Way as bairagi avowed!
He has looked upon Man, and his eyeballs are clear--(There was One; there is One, and but One, saith Kabir);The Red Mist of Doing has thinned to a cloud--He has taken the Path for bairagi avowed!
To learn and discern of his brother the clod,Of his brother the brute, and his brother the God,He has gone from the council and put on the shroud('Can ye hear?' saith Kabir), a bairagi avowed!
Words in this poem
- saith
- 3d pers. sing. pres. of Say.
- clod n.
- A lump or mass, especially of earth, turf, or clay. [OE. clodde, latter form of clot. See Clot.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Song of Kabir is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, A Song of Kabir, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/a-song-of-kabir.html, id L20305.
Form and metre
A Song of Kabir is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 98%).
See other poems in anapaestic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB handsA · landsA · shroudB · avowedB
- 2 AABB feetA · heatA · crowdB · avowedB
- 3 --AA clear · kabir · cloudA · avowedA
- 4 AABB clodA · godA · shroudB · avowedB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Oh, light was the world that he weighed in his hands! | 12 | ········˘··· |
| Oh, heavy the tale of his fiefs and his lands! | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| He has gone from the guddee and put on the shroud, | 12 | ············ |
| And departed in guise of bairagi avowed! | 12 | ·˘/˘······˘/ |
| Now the white road to Delhi is mat for his feet. | 12 | ·····/˘····· |
| The sal and the kikar must guard him from heat. | 11 | ··········· |
| His home is the camp, and the waste, and the crowd-- | 11 | ··········· |
| He is seeking the Way as bairagi avowed! | 12 | ··/˘······˘/ |
| He has looked upon Man, and his eyeballs are clear-- | 12 | ········/··· |
| (There was One; there is One, and but One, saith Kabir); | 12 | ············ |
| The Red Mist of Doing has thinned to a cloud-- | 12 | ····/˘··˘··· |
| He has taken the Path for bairagi avowed! | 12 | ··/˘······˘/ |
| To learn and discern of his brother the clod, | 11 | ···˘/··/˘·· |
| Of his brother the brute, and his brother the God, | 12 | ··/˘····/˘·· |
| He has gone from the council and put on the shroud | 12 | ·····/˘····· |
| ('Can ye hear?' saith Kabir), a bairagi avowed! | 12 | ··········˘/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.