Gitanjali 9
O Fool, try to carry thyself upon thy own shoulders! O beggar, to comebeg at thy own door!
Leave all thy burdens on his hands who can bear all, and never lookbehind in regret.
Thy desire at once puts out the light from the lamp it touches with itsbreath. It is unholy—take not thy gifts through its unclean hands.Accept only what is offered by sacred love.
Words in this poem
- unholy a.
- Not holy; unhallowed; not consecrated; hence, profane; wicked; impious.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Gitanjali 9 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 9, in Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7164, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tagore-gitanjali/poem-9.html, id L27871.
About this section
Gitanjali 9 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.
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.