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Representative Poetry Online, edition 6.0, is a web anthology of 4,800 poems in English and French by over 700 poets spanning 1400 years.  more about RPO

 

 

 

 

Playthings

Tagore, Rabindranath (1861 - 1941)
1Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the morning.
2I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig.
3I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour.
4Perhaps you glance at me and think, "What a stupid game to spoil your morning with!"
5Child, I have forgotten the art of being absorbed in sticks and mud-pies.
6I seek out costly playthings, and gather lumps of gold and silver.
7With whatever you find you create your glad games, I spend both my time and my strength over things I never can obtain.
8In my frail canoe I struggle to cross the sea of desire, and forget that I too am playing a game.
 What thou lovest well remains,
                  the rest is dross
What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage
Whose world, or mine or theirs
                or is it of none?
First came the seen, then thus the palpable
    Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage
What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee
Ezra Pound Pisan Cantos, LXXXI

On this day: November 11th

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