Gitanjali 78
When the creation was new and all the stars shone in their firstsplendour, the gods held their assembly in the sky and sang “Oh, thepicture of perfection! the joy unalloyed!”
But one cried of a sudden—“It seems that somewhere there is a break inthe chain of light and one of the stars has been lost.”
The golden string of their harp snapped, their song stopped, and theycried in dismay—“Yes, that lost star was the best, she was the glory ofall heavens!”
From that day the search is unceasing for her, and the cry goes on fromone to the other that in her the world has lost its one joy!
Only in the deepest silence of night the stars smile and whisper amongthemselves—“Vain is this seeking! unbroken perfection is over all!”
Words in this poem
- splendour n.
- Great brightness; brilliant luster; brilliancy; as, the splendor ot the sun. B. Jonson. [L. fr. splendere to shine: cf. F. splendeur.]
- unalloyed a.
- Not alloyed; not reduced by foreign admixture; unmixed; unqualified; pure; as, unalloyed metals; unalloyed happiness.
- somewhere adv.
- In some place unknown or not specified; in one place or another.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Gitanjali 78 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 78, in Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7164, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tagore-gitanjali/poem-78.html, id L27940.
About this section
Gitanjali 78 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.
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.