Analysis of The Gardener XVI: Hands Cling to Eyes

Rabindranath Tagore 1861 (Kolkata) – 1941 (Kolkata)



Hands cling to hands and eyes linger
on eyes: thus begins the record of our
hearts.
    It is the moonlit night of March;
the sweet smell of henna is in the air;
my flute lies on the earth neglected
and your garland of flowers is
unfinished.
    This love between you and me is
simple as a song.
    Your veil of the saffron colour
makes my eyes drunk.
    The jasmine wreath that you wove
me thrills to my heart like praise.
    It is a game of giving and with-
holding, revealing and screening again;
some smiles and some little shyness,
and some sweet useless struggles.
    This love between you and me is
simple as a song.
    No mystery beyond the present;
no striving for the impossible; no
shadow behind the charm; no groping
in the depth of the dark.
    This love between you and me is
simple as a song.
    We do not stray out of all words
into the ever silent; we do not raise
our hands to the void for things
beyond hope.
    It is enough what we give and we
get.
    We have not crushed the joy to
the utmost to wring from it the wine
of pain.
    This love between you and me is
simple as a song.


Scheme aabcdefgFHaijklmnoFHpqrsFHtkuvwxyz1 Fh
Poetic Form
Metre 11110110 11101001110 1 1101111 0111101001 111101010 01101101 010 11011011 10101 1110101 1111 0101111 1111111 110111001 1001001001 11011010 0111010 11011011 10101 110001010 1101001001 10101110 001101 11011011 10101 11111111 01010101111 10110111 011 110111101 1 1111011 01111101 11 11011011 10101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,085
Words 213
Sentences 14
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 37
Lines Amount 37
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 829
Words per stanza (avg) 211
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:03 min read
129

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…

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