Analysis of When I Go Alone At Night

Rabindranath Tagore 1861 (Kolkata) – 1941 (Kolkata)



WHEN I go alone at night to my love-tryst, birds do not sing, the wind does not stir, the houses on both sides of the street stand silent.
It is my own anklets that grow loud at every step and I am ashamed.

When I sit on my balcony and listen for his footsteps, leaves do not rustle on the trees, and the water is still in the river like the sword on the knees of a sentry fallen asleep.
It is my own heart that beats wildly -- I do not know how to quiet it.

When my love comes and sits by my side, when my body trembles and my eyelids droop, the night darkens, the wind blows out the lamp, and the clouds draw veils over the stars.
It is the jewel at my own breast that shines and gives light. I do not know how to hide it.


Scheme XX XA XA
Poetic Form
Metre 11101111111111101111010111101110 1111101111100101101 1111110001011111110101001011001010110110101001 111111110111111101 111101111111010111011011101001111001 1101011111101111111111
Characters 727
Words 154
Sentences 8
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 2, 2, 2
Lines Amount 6
Letters per line (avg) 92
Words per line (avg) 25
Letters per stanza (avg) 185
Words per stanza (avg) 51
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

46 sec read
113

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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