This poem is poem #50 in the collection Gitanjali (Song Offerings), but just as I'm not going to refer to Emily Dickenson's poems by their numbers, I'm not going to refer to Rabindranath Tagore's poems by their numbers.
I had gone a-begging from door to door in the village path, when thy golden chariot appeared in the
distance like a gorgeous dream and I wondered who was this King of all kings!
My hopes rose high and methought my evil days were at an end, and I stood waiting for alms to be given
unasked and for wealth scattered on all sides in the dust.
The chariot stopped where I stood. Thy glance fell on me and thou camest down with a smile. I felt that the
luck of my life had come at last. Then of a sudden thou didst hold out thy right hand and say `What hast
thou to give to me?'
Ah, what a kingly jest was it to open thy palm to a beggar to beg! I was confused and stood undecided, and
then from my wallet I slowly took out the least little grain of corn and gave it to thee.
But how great my surprise when at the day's end I emptied my bag on the floor to find a least little gram
of gold among the poor heap. I bitterly wept and wished that I had had the heart to give thee my all.
After Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature, he embarked on a lecture tour of North America. One of the stops on this tour was Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, slightly north of Austin. One of the young men who heard his lecture there was Myron Bass, who was my grandfather. Southwestern is a university run by the United Methodist Church, but my grandfather was impressed by the magnanimity of Tagore. I believe he may have been the first person from India my grandfather had ever seen. I am pleased to have but one degree of separation between myself and Rabindranath Tagore.
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