The Gardener 44
Reverend sir, forgive this pair of sinners. Spring winds to-dayare blowing in wild eddies, driving dust and dead leaves away, andwith them your lessons are all lost.Do not say, father, that life is a vanity.For we have made truce with death for once, and only for a fewfragrant hours we two have been made immortal.
Even if the king's army came and fiercely fell upon us we shouldsadly shake our heads and say, Brothers, you are disturbing us. Ifyou must have this noisy game, go and clatter your arms elsewhere.Since only for a few fleeting moments we have been made immortal.
If friendly people came and flocked around us, we should humblybow to them and say, This extravagant good fortune is anembarrassment to us. Room is scarce in the infinite sky where wedwell. For in the springtime flowers come in crowds, and the busywings of bees jostle each other. Our little heaven, where dwellonly we two immortals, is too absurdly narrow.
Words in this poem
- reverend a.
- Worthy of reverence; entitled to respect mingled with fear and affection; venerable. [F. révérend, L. reverendus, fr. revereri. See Revere.]
- sadly adv.
- Wearily; heavily; firmly.
- clatter v. i.
- To make a rattling sound by striking hard bodies together; to make a succession of abrupt, rattling sounds. [AS. cla a rattle, akin to D. klateren to rattle. Cf. Clack.]
- humbly adv.
- With humility; lowly.
- scarce a.
- Not plentiful or abundant; in small quantity in proportion to the demand; not easily to be procured; rare; uncommon. [OE. scars, OF. escars, eschars, LL. scarpsus, for L. excerptus, p. p. of excerpere to pick out, and hence to contract, to shorten; ex (see Ex-) + carpere. See C]
- dwell v. i.
- To delay; to linger. [OE. dwellen, dwelien, to err, linger, AS. dwellan to deceive, hinder, delay, dwelian to err; akin to Icel. dvelja to delay, tarry, Sw. dväljas to dwell, Dan. dv]
- springtime n.
- The season of spring; springtide.
- absurdly adv.
- In an absurd manner.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Gardener 44 is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Gardener, translated by the author from the original Bengali (Macmillan, London and New York, 1913; this text the 1915 printing), Project Gutenberg ebook #6686; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener 44, in The Gardener (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6686, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tagore-gardener/poem-44.html, id L27680.
About this section
The Gardener 44 is prose, printed in 3 paragraphs. It is part of the edition and is kept for reading, but nothing here is measured: the line breaks are the printer's, so no metre, rhyme scheme or scansion is stated.
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