On The Seashore
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet,
The endless sky is motionless overhead
And the restless water is boisterous.
On the seashore of endless worlds
The children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their house with sand,
and they play with empty shells.
With withered leaves they weave
Their boats and smilingly float them
On the vast deep.
Children have their play on the
Seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim,
They know not how to cast nets.
Pearl-fishers dive for pearls
Merchants sail in their ships,
While children gather pebbles
And scatter them again.
They seek not for hidden treasures,
They know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter,
And pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.
Death-dealing waves sing
Meaningless ballads to the children,
Even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle.
The sea plays with children,
And pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
Tempest roams in the pathless sky,
Ships are wrecked in the trackless water,
Death is abroad and children play.
On the seashore of endless worlds is the
Great meeting of children.
~Rabindranath Tagore
A towering talent, Tagore, born in 1816, wrote his first poem at the age of six. Asia's first Nobel Prise winner, famed for his poetry, he was a creative genius. He wrote over a thousand poems. A friend to many, he called W. B. Yeats, Albert Einstein and Ghandi his friends. A complex man, I think him worthy of inquiry.