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He came and sat by my side but I woke not. What a cursed sleep it was, O miserable me!
He came when the night was still; he had his harp in his hands, and my dreams became resonant with its melodies.
Alas, why are my nights all thus lost? Ah, why do I ever miss his sight whose breath touches my sleep?
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| Gitanjali Poem no. 26 |
Summary
Again Tagore reverts back to the theme of the beloved waiting for her lover and here mourns having gone to sleep and thus missed meeting God. Tagore says in the voice of the beloved, that God came and sat by his side as he slept but alas, he did not wake up. And he curses himself and his sleep for it meant a lost opportunity and wails how miserable he therefore was.
God came when the night was very still. He had harp in His hands and as He played it, the sweet melody of the harp mingled with the poet's dreams but he didn't wake. And then he exclaims in misery that in this way he lost his opportunity every night and thus his nights were useless. And that he questions why he always missed finding of seeing God when he was so near that His breath touched the poet as he slept.
Critical Analysis
Tagore expresses his sorrow that he was unable to have a view, to meet or see God even when he was given the opportunity and God was as near him as possible. As light difference from the earlier poems is brought out in that that the earlier poems talked about his waiting eagerly for God who was coming but did not come. Here, God has come but he is lost in sleep implying that man when he is lost in the darkness of ignorance or else lost in the pursuit of worldly matters, then even if God is sitting by him, man fails to see Him. The powerful tone of the poem is due to the poet having lost the opportunity of divine darshan and his coming to realize that he has lost such an opportunity due to his own mistakes, or his own inattentiveness.
Annotations
My dreams become.. melodies: God's music is ever present but the poet experiences it only in his dreams. In actuality, man cannot experience the melodies of the divine. My nights: The time when the poet moves away from worship into worldly pursuits.