Superior

by Rabindranath Tagore

Superior

Mother, your baby is silly! She is so absurdly childish!

She does not know the difference between the lights in the

streets and the stars.

When we play at eating with pebbles, she thinks they are real

food, and tries to put them into her mouth.

When I open a book before her and ask her to learn her a, b,

c, she tears the leaves with her hands and roars for joy at

nothing; this is your baby's way of doing her lesson.

When I shake my head at her in anger and scold her and call

her naughty, she laughs and thinks it great fun.

Everybody knows that father is away, but if in play I call

aloud "Father," she looks about her in excitement and thinks that

father is near.

When I hold my class with the donkeys that our washer man

brings to carry away the clothes and I warn her that I am the

schoolmaster, she will scream for no reason and call me dada.

Your baby wants to catch the moon. She is so funny; she calls

Ganesh Ganush.

Mother, your baby is silly! She is so absurdly childish! 

Silent Steps 

Have you not heard his silent steps? 

He comes, comes, ever comes. 

Every moment and every age, 

every day and every night he comes, comes, ever comes. 

Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind, 

but all their notes have always proclaimed, 

`He comes, comes, ever comes.' 

In the fragrant days of sunny April through the forest path he comes, 

comes, ever comes. 

In the rainy gloom of July nights on the thundering chariot of clouds 

he comes, comes, ever comes. 

In sorrow after sorrow it is his steps that press upon my heart, 

and it is the golden touch of his feet that makes my joy to shine. 

Threshold 

I was not aware of the moment 

when I first crossed the threshold of this life. 

What was the power that made me open out into this vast mystery 

like a bud in the forest at midnight! 

When in the morning I looked upon the light 

I felt in a moment that I was no stranger in this world, 

that the inscrutable without name and form 

had taken me in its arms in the form of my own mother. 

Even so, in death the same unknown will appear as ever known to me. 

And because I love this life, 

I know I shall love death as well. 

The child cries out 

when from the right breast the mother takes it away, 

in the very next moment to find in the left one its consolation.