I Had Gone a– Begging

About the poet

Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali poet of India born in the city of Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta). His name is written as Rabindranath Thakur in Indian languages. Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his translations of some of his poems, he became rapidly known in the West. In fact, his fame attained a luminous height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world he became the voice of India’s spiritual heritage; and for India, especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution. A native of Calcutta, India, who wrote in Bengali and often translated his own work into English, Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 — the first Asian to receive the honor. He wrote poetry, fiction, drama, essays, and songs; promoted reforms in education, aesthetics, and religion; and in his late sixties, he even turned to the visual arts, producing 2,500 paintings and drawings before his death. Although Tagore wrote successfully in all literary genres, he was, first of all, a poet. Tagore’s major works included Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World); and many other literary and artworks.

About the poem:

The 50^th poem from his Nobel Prize-winning collection, Gitanjali, I Had Gone a-begging is a poem that imparts a moral value through the narration of an incident. Written in the first person, this poem is directly addressed to the second character in the poem, that is, the man on the chariot. The poem is in the form of Beggar’s monologue as he narrates how due to his own miserly nature he suffered the greatest loss of his life and couldn’t recognize God even as he was standing right in front of him.

Mood, Setting of the poem:

The poem is set in the pathways of a village, which we can gather from the phrase, “I had gone a-begging from door to door in the village path”. Since the poem is actually the narration of an incident, and that it has been narrated on a first-person account, the mood of the poem varies. When he discovers the golden chariot riding towards him, he is excited and ecstatic. The king of king’s asking for alms surprises him so that he calls it a “kingly jest”. Finally, when his day is concluding and he checks his bag, the realization hits him and he is filled with remorse for his selfishness and miserly nature.

Stanza wise Annotations:

Stanza 1

I had gone a-begging – I had gone to beg, I was begging

Thy- your

King of all kings- somebody greater even than all the kings, since he traveled in the gorgeous golden chariot

Stanza 2

Methought- I thought

Evil days- days of despondence and poverty

Alms to be given unasked- the need to ask for charity won’t arise

Wealth scattered on all sides in the dust- there will be so much money, that it will be scattered all over the ground

Stanza 3

Thou camest- You came

Then of a sudden thou didst hold out thy right hand – All of a sudden, you held out your right hand

What hast thou to give to me?- What do you have to give to me?

Stanza 4

Kingly jest- great joke

Thy- your

Least little grain- smallest little grain

Thee- you

Stanza 5

Wept- cried

Give thee my all- give you my everything

Stanza wise explanation:

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!

The poet begins with a continuation from the title of the poem. We gather from the first line itself that the poet is a beggar. He was on his rounds, collecting alms, going from door to door in the village path. That is when he first sighted the golden chariot in the distance. The splendor of the chariot was such that the poet couldn’t help but wonder that to whom such a grand chariot could belong. He must be a man of immense wealth and power, a man who is above all kings. He refers to him as the king of kings because of these above-mentioned reasons and the usage of this phrase shows how affluent the man looked, at first sight, itself.

My hopes rose high and methought

my evil days were at an end,

and I stood to wait for alms to be given unasked

and for wealth scattered on all sides in the dust.

The incoming man’s wealth overwhelmed the poet and his hopes rose that a man with such riches would surely aid him and give him enough money in charity to end his poverty. The beggar stood to wait for the man to get down from his chariot and shower him with riches. Because the man was so powerful, he assumed that he would not even have to beg to him, but would be generously rewarded without even having to ask for it. He imagined a scenario with wealth overflowing such, that it would be scattered all over the ground.

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?’

The poet’s wishes came true when the man’s gorgeous chariot halted right next to him. The king of king’s glance fell on the beggar and he acknowledged him by descending down from his chariot and bestowing upon him a smile. The poet refers to that moment as the luck of his life because he felt that with such wealth, the man was bound to be generous and do enough charity to him to end his pitiable condition forever. But, to the poet’s surprise, the man held out his right hand to the poet and asked him what he had to give to him. This came as a shock to the beggar as the situation that he had imagined, got completely reversed. He had envisaged a scenario where the man would shower him with wealth, but instead, the tables completely turned and the man ended up asking the beggar what he could give him.

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.

The beggar calls the whole scene a ‘kingly jest’. This brings out the irony of the situation as the man who was of the stature of a king, actually asked a beggar for alms. A wealthy man has actually opened up his palm to a beggar to beg! This baffles the beggar and stands dumbly without any definite idea as to what course of action he should resort to. Then, he reluctantly retrieved a little grain of corn from his wallet and gave it to the wealthy man from the chariot. The use of the word “slowly”, is indicative of the fact that the beggar was miserly and it was with great hesitance that he parted with that small grain of corn. It might also be that he could not gauge as to why a man this rich would ask a poor beggar for aid.

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.

The concluding stanza captures the poet’s initial surprise and then regret when he finds while emptying his sack that a little gram of gold amongst the heap of his day’s collection. And then he realizes that it was no wealthy man, but God himself who had approached him and he was so selfish and miserly that his concern lay only with his own needs. He was reluctant to part with his grain of corn, but still in return of that God repaid him with gold. The beggar wishes that he too had a heart as big as the God’s and he could have gotten himself to part with all of his belongings and completely surrender to God. He achieves a spiritual awakening and realizes the importance of the act of giving unconditionally.

Critical Analysis

I Had Gone a Begging by Rabindranath Tagore is the fiftieth poem from his Nobel Prize-winning collection, Gitanjali. Written in blank verse, this poem is the story of a beggar, who is the poet himself. Narrated in a first-person account, the poet has directly addressed the poem to the King of King’s. He begins by giving voice to his initial selfish and greedy thoughts on seeing the arrival of the golden chariot and then moves on to describing his utter shock when the man alights from the chariot and spreads his hand in front of the beggar, asking him for alms. The irony of the situation both amuses and confuses the beggar, but gathering his wits, he gives one little grain of corn to the man. When he goes back and sees that the little grain of corn has been replaced by an equivalent amount of gold, he is filled with remorse. He laments that had he had a heart as big as the man’s, he would have given away all his belongings to him. This is also when he realizes that the man in the chariot was no commoner, but God himself. This incident incites a spiritual awakening within the poet as he realizes that materialistic things lose all their value when compared to the real riches, which are kindness, generosity, and empathy. Through this poem, Tagore has brought into focus the increase in the importance that is endowed upon materialistic goods and how man is driven, not by love and compassion, but by miserly approach, greed, and never-ending demands. The beggar wished for all his problems to be solved by the charity of the man in the chariot, but without any consideration for the man in the chariot. He is willing to accept the man’s riches, but when it comes to giving him something, he is reluctant and miserly. Man has become such that he puts himself above everything else.

Conclusion

A work of the master, Rabindranath Tagore, I Had Gone a Begging is a poem that imparts a moral lesson through the narration of a poem. A beggar asking for alms from door to door chances upon a wealthy man in a golden chariot and imagines that his charity will change his life. But it so happens that the man reverses the situation by spreading his palms in front of the beggar. The beggar reluctantly parts with his little grain of corn and that night, when he goes home and empties his bag, he realizes that his life has indeed changed forever. He finds a grain of gold, equivalent to the size of the grain of corn that he had given to the King of all kings. That is when he realizes that the man was no commoner but was god himself. It taught him the impermanence of materialistic commodities and the importance of the act of giving and kindness. This poem is an exemplar of how God gives back in the same amount what we give him, but with a much larger heart. It is a tale of the spiritual awakening of a man.

You Who Never Arrived

About the poet:

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke also called Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian-Austrian writer. Conceived on 4^th December 1875, Rilke was the only child of a German-talking family in Prague, then a piece of the Austro-Hungarian empire. He was generally perceived as a standout amongst the most expressively extreme German-dialect artists writing in both verse and profoundly expressive exposition. In 1897, Rilke went to Russia, which denoted the genuine start of his initial works. His first extraordinary work, Das Stunden Buch (The Book of Hours), showed up in 1905. But Paris would serve as the geographic focus of his life, where he first started to add to another style of expressive verse, affected by the visual expressions. Rilke communicated thoughts with “physical instead of scholarly images. Rilke thinks about the human regarding the non-human, of what he calls Things (Dinge).” Besides this system, the other imperative part of Rilke’s compositions was the advancement of his reasoning, which came to a peak in Duineser Elegien ( Duino Elegies ) and Die Sonette an Orpheus (Sonnets to Orpheus). Dismissing the Catholic convictions of his guardians and additionally Christianity by and large, the writer endeavored for the duration of his life to accommodate magnificence and enduring, life and demise, into single reasoning. His reputation has consistently grown since his passing away on December 29, 1926, and he is now viewed as an expert of verse.

About the poem:

You Who Never Arrived is a poem of Rilke that is based upon his personal view that a man never finds his one true love in his lifetime. He talks about his Beloved who is within him, but constantly eludes him. Despite his longing for her, he has accepted the fact that he will never find her. In the conclusion of the poem, he says that he knows that his Beloved is out there, somewhere looking for him just the way he is looking for her. But, every time fate intercepts in such a manner that every time they come tantalizingly close to each other, he loses her.

Mood, Setting of the poem:

The mood of the poet is one where he longs for his Beloved but has also accepted the fact that she is forever going to remain elusive to him. He mourns that despite being so close to her he still can’t meet her. The poet is somber as he knows that his want is going to remain unfulfilled. He has accepted his fate but he still dreams about his Beloved as he believes that she is out there, somewhere.

Stanza wise annotations:

Stanza 1

Beloved- Loved one

A surging wave of the next moment- Gushing force of the upcoming moment

Immense images in me- massive pictures drawn within me

Pulsing- alive

The life of the gods- an eternal, immortal living, larger than life

Unsuspected- unforeseen

Elude- escape from me

Stanza 2

Pensive- introspective, lost in deep thoughts

Chanced upon- happened to be upon

Dizzy with your presence- not yet over your presence

Too-sudden- abrupt

Stanza wise explanation:

Stanza 1

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don’t even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me-the far-off, deeply-felt
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and
unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods–
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

Rilke addresses this poem to his beloved. He laments the fact that his Beloved is elusive and he wonders what he could ever do catch her. The poet muses on all the occasions upon which he and his beloved never met, but nevertheless, he expresses his desire to meet her and recounts occasions when he tried to please her so that she would finally appear to him. He says his love was lost from the start. This tells us that he has never met his lover thus; it is not a case of lost and found, but one of hiding and seek where he is continuously trying to find his beloved. Personally, the poet doesn’t know his beloved that well, since he doesn’t know what songs will please her. This tells the reader that the poet doesn’t know about the personal interests of his beloved. So unsuccessful he has been in finding her that the poet has stopped trying to look for her in the ever-changing times.  Everything that the poet is made up of, the whole world of landscapes, cities, and towers that lie within him mean nothing but his Beloved. He says that his elusive Beloved is what his soul is constructed of. Her presence inside him is so powerful that it gives rise to whole superstructures within him. She makes his world and fills it to the brim with power, such that it is like a powerful land that is alive with the life of the gods; indicating eternality and immortality.

Stanza 2:

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house– , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,–
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening…

Rilke takes the second stanza to elucidate upon his Beloved’s elusive nature. He analogizes her with gardens that he has gazed at with longing, but has never been able to own them. Equating her with a garden projects his Beloved as a picture of peace, tranquillity, and beauty. Described as the open window of a country house, his Beloved is available but unapproachable. She is very close to him, lost in her own musings, desires to meet him, but steps back in the very last moment. Her evasive nature makes it impossible to track her. The poet realizes while walking on unexpected streets that his Beloved has just walked upon the same path, but he has again missed her by a heartbeat. Even when the poet walks into shops and notices the mirrors, you know that they viewed his Beloved just before reflecting back on his image. His reflection appears too sudden, too abrupt, like it doesn’t belong alone, but is complete with his Beloved who has again vanished even after coming this tantalizingly close. In conclusion, the poet is musing to himself that perhaps the same voice speaks within them and tells them the same things, perhaps they both are looking for each other and running around in circles, out of reach of the other. Despite the echo within them being the same, they are not together and remain separate and perennially shifty.

Critical Analysis:

Rilke’s You Who Never Arrived is a poem of two stanzas that deals with his mystical longing for glimpses of his elusive Beloved. The poet here is not shown to be struggling to find his one true love but has accepted the fact that Beloved will forever remain tantalizingly close, but just out of his reach. The poet says that his Beloved was lost even before the start. This is indicative of the fact that he has never met her. But he continues by saying that she resides within him and has constructed a whole world, complete with landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, in his soul. He equalizes her with his soul and credits the power that pulses within him, making him alive, to her. But, he lives with the longing to someday meet her, yet accepting the fact that she is forever going to elude him and that he will never find her in reality. This is in line with Rilke’s belief that a man never finds his soul-mate or one true love in his lifetime. The poet can feel her presence everywhere he goes and is of the belief that every step that he takes, he is actually tracing her footsteps. Feeling her presence in mirrors in shops, on the streets, all point towards this. It can be deduced that such an ideal Beloved exists, not in reality, but within the poet himself. Yet, the poet wants to live in an illusion of knowing that his Beloved is out there, somewhere, but he will never find her. The poets Beloved exists more in fantasy than in reality. This is what makes her this ideal. “Who knows? Perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us, yesterday, separate, in the evening… “, this phrase tells us that the poet might actually believe that his beloved lives within him as the same voice echoes within them at the same time. They are together, yet they are not. The poet laments the fact that he doesn’t even have a lost love that he can mourn because he has never met his Beloved to experience real love blossoming within them. The poet chooses to live with the phantasm of lost love than to not dream at all.

Poetic Devices

Metaphor

“You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house”

The poet has used gardens and an open window of a country house as a metaphor for his Beloved. He looks at exotic, beautiful gardens with longing, but can’t acquire them. This goes to show that his Beloved has the same ethereal air about her, like the gardens, and symbolizes peace, tranquillity, and beauty. Her comparison with an open window of a country house shows how inviting, yet unapproachable she is.

Personification

“And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.”

The mirrors in the shops are attributed to the human characteristics of being dizzy and startled. This has been done to show the sudden disappearance of the poet’s Beloved on his presence leaves the mirrors too disturbed and they haven’t yet gotten over the image of the poet’s beloved to actually try and adjust to the poet’s image.

Hyperbole

All the immense
images in me-the far-off, deeply-felt
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and
unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods–
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

The poet tries to project a picture of his vast soul by citing cities, bridges, and landscapes. He says that everything that is within him rises to mean her, his Beloved. Her presence within him makes him feel alive, eternal, and immortal like he harbors the life of Gods within him. This exaggeration has been done to create a larger than life picture of his Beloved and conveys to the reader what she means to him.

Conclusion

The writing of You Who Never Arrived by Rilke is such that it portrays the poet’s lost and scattered thoughts. It is an exemplar of Rilke’s versatility as a poet as his construction of sentences and is such that the reader is made of his predicament of knowing that his Beloved is out there but is inaccessible to him. He has accepted the bitter fact that he will never be able to meet her, but will continue being tormented by her incidental closeness. He laments it that he every time misses her in spite of coming so close to her. His use of metaphors establishes that his Beloved is someone beautiful with tranquillity, but is unapproachable. He concludes on the note that his Beloved is looking for him with the same desperation that he has been searching for her. Maybe the poet knows that his Beloved is nowhere, but within himself, but he prefers to harbor the fantasy that she too is on the lookout for him.