Analysis of Lover's Gifts XXII: I Shall Gladly Suffer
Rabindranath Tagore 1861 (Kolkata) – 1941 (Kolkata)
I shall gladly suffer the pride of culture to die out in my house,
if only in some happy future I am born a herd-boy in the Brinda
forest.
The herd-boy who grazes his cattle sitting under the banyan
tree, and idly weaves gunja flowers into garlands, who loves to
splash and plunge in the Jamuna's cool deep stream.
He calls his companions to wake up when morning dawns, and all
the houses in the lane hum with the sound of the churn, clouds of
dust are raised by the cattle, the maidens come out in the
courtyard to milk the king.
As the shadows deepen under the tomal trees, and the dusk
gathers on the river-banks; when the milkmaids, while crossing the
turbulent water, tremble with fear; and loud peacocks, with tails
outspread, dance in the forest, he watchers the summer clouds.
When the April night is sweet as a fresh-blown flower, he
disappears in the forest with a peacock's plume in his hair; the
swing ropes are twined with flowers on the branches; the south wind
throbs with music, and the merry shepherd boys crowd on the banks
of the blue river.
No, I will never be the leader, brothers, of this new age of
new Bengal; I shall not trouble to light the lamp of culture for
the benighted. If only I could be born, under the shady asoka
groves, in some village of Brinda, where milk is churned by the
maidens!
Scheme | ABBCBDEFGHIGJKLGBMNFOHGP |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101001110111011 110011010111011001 10 011111101010010 10101110011111 101001111 111010111110101 010001110110111 11110100101100 11101 1011010011001 10101011011100 10010101101111 1100101100101 10101111011101 01001010110110 11111101010011 111000101011101 10110 1111010101011111 1101111011011101 00101101111100101 1011011111110 10 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,326 |
Words | 247 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 24 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 43 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,039 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 245 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 1:14 min read
- 153 Views
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