Gitanjali 60
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky ismotionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On theseashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand and they play with empty shells. Withwithered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on thevast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearlfishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while childrengather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hiddentreasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter and pale gleams the smile of the seabeach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children,even like a mother while rocking her baby’s cradle. The sea plays withchildren, and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in thepathless sky, ships get wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroadand children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the greatmeeting of children.
Words in this poem
- boisterous a.
- Rough or rude; unbending; unyielding; strong; powerful. [OE. boistous; of uncertain origin; cf. W. bwyst wild, savage, wildness, ferocity, bwystus ferocious.]
- smilingly adv.
- In a smiling manner.
- pathless a.
- Having no beaten path or way; untrodden; impenetrable; as, pathless woods.
- trackless a.
- Having no track; marked by no footsteps; untrodden; as, a trackless desert.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Gitanjali 60 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 60, in Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7164, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tagore-gitanjali/poem-60.html, id L27922.
About this section
Gitanjali 60 is prose, printed in 5 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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