Sahitya Akademi

The Child
Author(s): Rabindranath Tagore
Source: Indian Literature, Vol. 4, No. 1/2, Tagore Number (Oct. 1960/Sept.1961), pp. 1-8
Published by: Sahitya Akademi
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23329345
Accessed: 02-02-2017 10:45 UTC

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Rabindranath Tagore Rabindra-Sadan

Self-Portrait

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 Hol
Indian Literatare Vol. 4, 1961

fcJfe Sahitya Akademi New Delhi

The Child

Rabindranath Tagore

"What of the night?" they ask.

No answer comes.

For the blind Time gropes in a maze and knows not

its path or purpose.
The darkness in the valley stares like the dead
eye-sockets of a giant,
the clouds like a nightmare oppress the sky,
and the massive shadows lie scattered like the torn
limbs of the night.
A lurid glow waxes and wanes on the horizon, —
is it an ultimate threat from an alien star,
or an elemental hunger licking the sky?
Things are deliriously wild,
they are a noise whose grammar is a groan,
and words smothered out of shape and sense.
They are the refuse, the rejections, the fruitless failures of life.

This is the only poetical composition written originally in English

by Rabindranath Tagore. It was written in Germany in 1930, soon
after the poet had witnessed the Passion Play at Oberammergau.
A year later he adapted it into Bengali under the title Sisu-tirtha
which was staged in Calcutta in September 1931 in aid of the flood
stricken people of north Bengal. It was first published in English
as The Child by George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1931. — Ed.

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2 INDIAN literature: vol. 4, 1961

abrupt ruins of prodigal pride,—

fragments of a bridge over the oblivion of a vanished stream,
godless shrines that shelter reptiles,
marble steps that lead to blanlcness.
Sudden tumults rise in the sky and wrestle
and a startled shudder runs along the sleepless hours.
Are they from desperate floods
hammering against their cave walls,
or from some fanatic storms
whirling and howling incantations?
Are they the cry of an ancient forest
flinging up its hoarded fire in a last extravagant suicide,
or screams of a paralytic crowd scourged by lunatics
blind and deaf?
Underneath the noisy terror a stealthy hum creeps up
like bubbling volcanic mud,
a mixture of sinister whispers, rumours and
slanders, and hisses of derision.
The men gathered there are vague like torn pages of an epic.
Groping in groups or single, their torchlight tattoos
their faces in chequered lines, in patterns of frightfulness.
The maniacs suddenly strike their neighbours on suspicion
and a hubbub of an indiscriminate fight bursts forth
echoing from hill to hill.
The women weep and wail,
they cry that their children are lost in a wilderness
of contrary paths with confusion at the end.
Others defiantly ribald shake with raucous laughter
their lascivious limbs unshrinkingly loud,
for ihey think that nothing matters.

II

There on the crest of the hill

stands the Man of faith amid the snow-white silence,
He scans the sky for some signal of light,
and when the clouds thicken and the nightbirda
scream as they fly,
he cries, 'Brothers, despair not, for Man is great.'

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THE CHILD 3

But they never heed him,

for they believe that the elemental brute is eternal
and goodness in its depth is darkly cunning in deception.
When beaten and wounded they cry, 'Brother, where art thou?"
The answer comes, 'I am by your side.' —
But they cannot see in the dark
and they argue that the voice is of their own desperate desire,
that men are ever condemned to fight for phantoms
in an interminable desert of mutual menace.

III

The clouds part, the morning star appears in the East,

a breath of relief springs up from the heart of the earth,
the murmur of leaves ripples along the forest path,
and the early bird sings.
"The time has come,' proclaims the Man of faith.
"The time for what?'
Tor the pilgrimage.'
They sit and think, they know not the meaning,
and yet they seem to understand according to their desires.
The touch of the dawn goes deep into the soil
and life shivers along through the roots of all things.
To the pilgrimage of fulfilment,' a small voice
whispers, nobody knows whence.
Taken up by the crowd
it swells into a mighty meaning.
Men raise their heads and look up,
women lift their arms in reverence,
children clap their hands and laugh.
The early glow of the sim shines like a golden garland
on the forehead of the' Man of faith,
and thev all cry: 'Brother, we salute thee 1'
♦

IV

Men begin to gather from all quarters,

from across the seas, the mountains and pathless wastes,

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4 INDIAN LITERATURE: VOL. 4, 1961

They come from the valley of the Nile and the banks
of the Ganges,
from the snow-sunk uplands of Thibet,
from high-walled cities of glittering towers,
from the dense dark tangle of savage wilderness.
Some walk, some ride on camels, horses and elephants,
on chariots with banners vieing with the clouds of dawn,
The priests of all creeds burn incense, chanting verses as they go.
The monarchs march at the head of their armies,
lances flashing in the sun and drums beating loud.
Ragged beggars and courtiers pompously decorated,
agile young scholars and teachers burdened with
learned age jostle each other in the crowd.
Women come chatting and laughing,
mothers, maidens and brides,
with offerings of flowers and fruit,
sandal paste and scented water.
Mingled with them is the harlot,
shrill of voice and loud in tint and tinsel.
The gossip is there who secretly poisons the well
of human sympathy and chuckles.
The maimed and the cripple join the throng with the
blind and the sick,
the dissolute, the thief and the man who makes a
trade of his God for profit and mimics the saint.
"The fulfilment 1'
They dare not talk aloud,
but in their minds they magnify their own greed,
and dream of boundless power,
of unlimited impunity for pilfering and plunder,
and eternity of feast for their unclean gluttonous flesh.

The Man of faith moves on along pitiless paths strewn ,

with flints over scorching sands and steep
mountainous tracks.
They follow him, the strong and the weak, the aged and young,
the rulers of realm i, the tillers of the soil.

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THE fWTtn 5

Some grow weary and footsore, some angry and suspicious.

They ask at every dragging step,
'How much further is the end^
The Man of faith sings in answer;
they scowl and shake their fists and yet they cannot resist him;
the pressure of the moving mass and indefinite
hope push them forward.
They shorten their sleep and curtail their rest,
they out-vie each other in their speed,
They are ever afraid lest they may be too late for their chance
while others be more fortunate.
The days pass,
the ever-receding horizon tempts them with renewed
lure of the unseen till they are sick.
Their faces harden, their curses grow louder and louder.

VI

It is night.
The travellers spread their mats on the ground
under the banyan tree.
A gust of wind blows out the lamp
and the darkness deepens like a sleep into a swoon.
Someone from the crowd suddenly stands up
and pointing to the leader with merciless finger breaks out:
'False prophet, thou hast deceived us 1'
Others take up the cry one by one,
women hiss their hatred and men growl.
At last one bolder than others suddenly deals him a blow.
They cannot see his face, but fall upon him in a fury
of destruction
and hit him till he lies prone upon the ground his life extinct
The night is still, the sound of the distant waterfall
comes muffled,
and a faint breath of jasmine floats in the air.

VII

The pilgrims are afraid.

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6 INDIAN LITERATURE: VOL. 4, 1961

The women begin to cry, the men in an agony of

wretchedness
shout at them to stop.
Dogs break out barking and are cruelly whipped into
silence broken by moans.
The night seems endless and men and women begin to
wrangle as to who among them was to blame.
They shriek and shout and as they are ready
to unsheathe their knives
the darkness pales, the morning light overflows
the mountain tops.
Suddenly they become still and gasp for breath as they
gaze at the figure lying dead.
The women sob out loud and men hide their faces in their hands,
A few try to slink away unnoticed,
but their crime keeps them chained to their victim.
They ask each other in bewilderment,
'Who will show us the path?5
The old man from the East bends his head- and says:
The Victim.'
They sit still and silent.
Again speaks the old man,
"We refused him in doubt, we killed him in anger,
now we shall accept him in love,
for in his death he lives in the life of us all, the
great Victim.'
And they all stand up and mingle their voices and sing,
'Victory to the Victim.'

VIII

To the pilgrimage,' calls the young,

'to love, to power, to knowledge, to wealth overflowing.'
"We shall conquer the world and the world beyond this,'
they all cry exultant in a thundering cataract of voices,
The meaning is not the same to them all, but only the impulse,,
the moving confluence of wills that recks not death
and disaster.
No longer they ask for their way,

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THE <tht.t> 7

no more doubts ate there to burden their minds

or weariness to clog their feet.
The spirit of the Leader is within them and ever beyond them—
the Leader who has crossed death and all limits.
They travel over the fields where the seeds are sown,
by the granajy where the harvest is gathered,
and across the barren soil where famine dwells
and skeletons cry for the return of their flesh.
They pass through populous cities humming with life,
through dumb desolation hugging its ruined past,
and hovels for the unclad and unclean,
a mockery of home for the homeless.
They travel through long hours of the summer day,
and as the light wanes in the evening they ask
the man who reads the sky:
'Brother, is yonder the tower of our final hope and peace?"
The wise man shakes his head and says:
'It is the last vanishing cloud of the sunset.'
'Friends,' exhorts the young, do not stop.
Through the night's blindness we must struggle
into the Kingdom of living light.'
They go on in the dark.
The road seems to know its own meaning
and dust underfoot dumbly speaks of direction.
The stars—celestial wayfarers—sing in silent chorus:
'Move on, comrades 1*
In the air floats the voice of the Leader:
The goal is nigh.'

IX

The first flush of dawn glistens on the dew-dripping

leaves of the forest.
The man who reads the sky cries:
'Friends, we have come !'
They stop and look around.
On both sides of the road the corn is ripe to the horizon,
—the glad golden answer of the earth to the morning light.
The current of daily life moves slowly

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8 INDIAN uteratdbe: VOL. 4, 1961

between the village near the hill and the one

by the river bank.
The potter's wheel goes round, the woodcutter brings
fuel to the market,
the cow-herd takes his cattle to the pasture,
and the woman with the pitcher on her hea$
walks to the well.
But where is the King's castle, the mine of gold,
the secret book of magic,
the sage who knows love's utter wisdom?
The stars cannot be wrong,' assures the reader of the sky.
Their signal points to that spot.'
And reverently he walks to a wayside spring
from which wells up a stream of water, a liquid light,
like the morning melting into a chorus of tears and laughter.
Near it in a palm grove surrounded by a strange hush
stands a leaf-thatched hut,
at whose portal sits the poet of the unknown shore, and sings:
"Mother, open the gate!"

A ray of morning sun strikes aslant at the door.

The assembled crowd feel in their blood the primasval
chant of creation:
'Mother, open the gate 1'
The gate opens.
The mother is seated on a straw bed with the babe on her lap,
like the dawn with the morning star.
The sun's ray that was waiting at the door outside
falls on the head of the child.
The poet strikes his lute and sings out:
"Victory to Man, the new-born, the ever-living I'
They kneel down, - the king and the beggar, the saint
and the sinner,
the wise and the fool, — and cry:
Victory to Man, the new-born, the ever-living!'
The old man from the East murmurs to himself:
'I have seen 1'

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