Gitanjali 86

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) · 1912

9 lines · from Gitanjali (Song Offerings)

Death, thy servant, is at my door. He has crossed the unknown sea andbrought thy call to my home.

The night is dark and my heart is fearful—yet I will take up the lamp,open my gates and bow to him my welcome. It is thy messenger who standsat my door.

I will worship him placing at his feet the treasure of my heart.

He will go back with his errand done, leaving a dark shadow on mymorning; and in my desolate home only my forlorn self will remain as mylast offering to thee.

Words in this poem

forlorn a.
Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

Gitanjali 86 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 86, in Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7164, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tagore-gitanjali/poem-86.html, id L27948.

About this section

Gitanjali 86 is prose, printed in 4 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.

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