POEM OF THE DAY: 'The Home' by Rabindranath Tagore

I paced alone on the road across the field while the

sunset was hiding its last gold like a miser.

The daylight sank deeper and deeper into the dark-

ness, and the widowed land, whose harvest had been

reaped, lay silent.

Suddenly a boy's shrill voice rose into the sky. He

traversed the dark unseen, leaving the track of his song

across the hush of the evening.

His village home lay there at the end of the waste

land, beyond the sugar-cane field, hidden among the

shadows of the banana and the slender areca palm, the

coconut and the dark green jack-fruit trees.

I stopped for a moment in my lonely way under the

starlight, and saw spread before me the darkened earth

surrounding with her arms countless homes furnished

with cradles and beds, mothers' hearts and evening

lamps, and young lives glad with a gladness that knows

nothing of its value for the world.