Summary of 'on the Seashore' by Rabindranath Tagore?
I need a summary for this poem by Rabindranath for about a page ASAP……
1On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
2The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.
3They build their houses 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.
4They 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.
5The 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.
6On 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.
I need a brief summary of this poem for about a page…ASAP!!!
Tagore shows us some children playing on the seashore, and hints that all human life is as trivial (and perhaps as enjoyable) as a children’s game at the edge of the tide.
An important implied image in the poem is that at the end of the day the tide will rise and wipe out any sign of the children’s activity (their footprints, their sandcastles).
This – says Tagore – is similar to how time wipes away any trace of human civilisation.
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Tagore really isn’t saying a lot, and the image is one of the most hackneyed in world literature. But then Tagore really wasn’t much of a poet, or a thinker (which is why he is so popular).
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To bulk this out to a page, you should probably list all the different things that we are told the children are up to (building sandcastles, playing with shells).