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 yourcourtyard, though some are lost and some not ripe.
For the season grows heavy with its fulness, and there is a plaintiveshepherd’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 comesfrom 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 fromher abundance and never feels the loss when the spring breeze comes to beg ather door.
Now at the end of youth my life is like a fruit, having nothing to spare, andwaiting to offer herself completely with her full burden of sweetness.
III
Is summer’s festival only for fresh blossoms and not also for witheredleaves 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 patientclods waiting to be touched by his feet.
Few are the wise and the great who sit by my Master, but he has taken thefoolish 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, forwho 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 mylap 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 thisunread 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 holdit high on their summits.
I had my face turned from you, therefore I read the letters awry and knew nottheir 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 theflowers 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 theeternal 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 se