Fruit-Gathering

Fruit-Gathering

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fruit-Gathering, by Rabindranath
Tagore Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to
check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or
redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: Fruit-Gathering
Author: Rabindranath Tagore
Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6522] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on December 25,
2002]
Edition: 10

Language: English
Character set encoding: Latin1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK,
FRUIT-GATHERING ***

Original html version created at eldritchpress.org by Eric Eldred. This
eBook was produced by Chetan K. Jain.

Fruit-Gathering
By Rabindranath Tagore
[Translated from Bengali to English by the author]
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916

I
Bid me and I shall gather my fruits to bring them in full baskets into
your courtyard, though some are lost and some not ripe.
For the season grows heavy with its fulness, and there is a plaintive
shepherd's pipe in the shade.
Bid me and I shall set sail on the river.
The March wind is fretful, fretting the languid waves into murmurs.
The garden has yielded its all, and in the weary hour of evening the call
comes from your house on the shore in the sunset.

II
My life when young was like a flower--a flower that loosens a petal or
two from her abundance and never feels the loss when the spring
breeze comes to beg at her door.
Now at the end of youth my life is like a fruit, having nothing to spare,
and waiting to offer herself completely with her full burden of
sweetness.

III
Is summer's festival only for fresh blossoms and not also for withered

leaves and faded flowers?
Is the song of the sea in tune only with the rising waves?
Does it not also sing with the waves that fall?
Jewels are woven into the carpet where stands my king, but there are
patient clods waiting to be touched by his feet.
Few are the wise and the great who sit by my Master, but he has taken
the foolish in his arms and made me his servant for ever.

IV
I woke and found his letter with the morning.
I do not know what it says, for I cannot read.
I shall leave the wise man alone with his books, I shall not trouble him,
for who knows if he can read what the letter says.
Let me hold it to my forehead and press it to my heart.
When the night grows still and stars come out one by one I will spread
it on my lap and stay silent.
The rustling leaves will read it aloud to me, the rushing stream will
chant it, and the seven wise stars will sing it to me from the sky.
I cannot find what I seek, I cannot understand what I would learn; but
this unread letter has lightened my burdens and turned my thoughts into
songs.

V
A handful of dust could hide your signal when I did not know its
meaning.
Now that I am wiser I read it in all that hid it before.
It is painted in petals of flowers; waves flash it from their foam; hills
hold it high on their summits.
I had my face turned from you, therefore I read the letters awry and
knew not their meaning.

VI
Where roads are made I lose my way.
In the wide water, in the blue sky there is no line of a track.
The pathway is hidden by the birds' wings, by the star-fires, by the
flowers of the wayfaring seasons.

And I ask my heart if its blood carries the wisdom of the unseen way.

VII
Alas, I cannot stay in the house, and home has become no home to me,
for the eternal Stranger calls, he is going along the road.
The sound of his footfall knocks at my breast; it pains me!
The wind is up, the sea is moaning. I leave all my cares and doubts