Analysis of The Chanpa Flower

Rabindranath Tagore 1861 (Kolkata) – 1941 (Kolkata)



Supposing I became a chanpa flower, just for fun, and grew on a
branch high up that tree, and shook in the wind with laughter and
danced upon the newly budded leaves, would you know me, mother?
    You would call, "Baby, where are you?" and I should laugh to
myself and keep quite quiet.
    I should slyly open my petals and watch you at your work.
    When after your bath, with wet hair spread on your shoulders,
you walked through the shadow of the champ tree to the little court
where you say your prayers, you would notice the scent of the
flower, but not know that it cane from me.
    When after the midday meal you sat at the window reading
ramayana, and the tree's shadow fell over your hair and your lap,
I should fling my wee little shadow on to the page of your book,
just where you were reading.
    But  would you guess that it was the tiny shadow of your
little child?
    When in the evening you went to the cow shed with the lighted
lamp in your hand I should suddenly drop on to the earth again and
be your own baby once more, and beg you to tell me a story.
    "Where have you been, you naughty child?"
    "I won't tell you, mother." That's what you and I would say
then.


Scheme ABCDEFGHAIJKLJMNOBINPQ
Poetic Form
Metre 01010101101110110 11111010011100 10101011111110 1111011101111 101110 111010110011111 1101111111110 11101101110101 1111111100110 1011111111 11001111101010 1001111011011 111111011101111 111010 1111111010111 101 100101110111010 10111110011101010 1111011011111010 11111101 1111101110111 1
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,180
Words 233
Sentences 12
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 22
Lines Amount 22
Letters per line (avg) 41
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 896
Words per stanza (avg) 229
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:09 min read
151

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore FRAS was an Indian polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. more…

All Rabindranath Tagore poems | Rabindranath Tagore Books

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