Gitanjali 33
When it was day they came into my house and said, “We shall only takethe smallest room here.”
They said, “We shall help you in the worship of your God and humblyaccept only our own share in his grace”; and then they took their seatin a corner and they sat quiet and meek.
But in the darkness of night I find they break into my sacred shrine,strong and turbulent, and snatch with unholy greed the offerings fromGod’s altar.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- humbly adv.
- With humility; lowly.
- unholy a.
- Not holy; unhallowed; not consecrated; hence, profane; wicked; impious.
- greed n.
- An eager desire or longing; greediness; as, a greed of gain. [Akin to Goth. grdus hunger, Icel. graedhr. sq. root34. See Greedy.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Gitanjali 33 is in the public domain. This text is taken from Gitanjali (Song Offerings), a collection of prose translations made by the author from the original Bengali, with an introduction by W. B. Yeats (India Society, London, 1912), Project Gutenberg ebook #7164; 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, Gitanjali 33, in Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7164, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tagore-gitanjali/poem-33.html, id L27895.
About this section
Gitanjali 33 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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