I CAST MY NET INTO THE SEA
by: Rabindranath Tagore
(1861-1941)
- N the morning I cast my net into
the sea.
-
- I dragged up from the dark abyss things of strange aspect
and strange beauty -- some shone like a smile, some glistened
like tears, and some were flushed like the cheeks of a bride.
-
- When with the day's burden I went home, my love was sitting
in the garden idly tearing the leaves of a flower.
-
- I hesitated for a moment, and then placed at her feet all
that I had dragged up, and stood silent.
-
- She glanced at them and said, "What strange things are
these? I know not of what use they are!"
-
- I bowed my head in shame and thought, "I have not fought
for these, I did not buy them in the market; they are not fit
gifts for her."
-
- Then the whole night through I flung them one by one into
the street.
-
- In the morning travellers came; they picked them up and carried
them into far countries.
"I cast my net into the sea"
is reprinted from The Gardener. Rabindranath Tagore. New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1913. |
MORE POEMS BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE |
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