When and why | When I bring to you colour'd toys, my child

by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941)

Translation by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941)

When I bring to you colour’d toys

Language: English after the Bangla (Bengali)

Our translations: GER

When I bring you coloured toys, my child,
I understand why there is such a play of colours 
On clouds, on water, and why flow'rs are painted in tints:
When I give colour'd toys to you, my child.

When I sing to make you dance,
I truly know why there is music in leaves,
And why waves send their chorus of voices
To the heart of the listening earth:
When I sing to make you dance.

When I bring sweet things to your greedy hands,
I know why there is honey in the cup of the flower
And why fruits are secretly filled with sweet juice:
When I bring sweet things to your greedy hands.

When I kiss your face to make you smile, my darling, 
I surely understand what pleasure streams 
from the sky in morning light, and what delight 
that is that is which the summer breeze 
brings to my body - when I kiss you to make you smile.

Note: in Gitanjali, the poem has no title; but in The Crescent Moon, its title is "When and why"

Note: in Trotta's setting, in the last repeat of the first stanza, line 5 (stanza 2 of the original text), the added text "We are free" becomes "We are one." (see footnote 3)

Composition:

John Alden Carpenter

Gitanjali (Song Offerings)

Text Authorship:

by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941), no title, written 1913, appears in Gitanjali, no. 62, appears in The Crescent Moon, no. 9, first published 1913

Based on:

a text in Bangla (Bengali) by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941), no title, appears in গীতাঞ্জলি (Gitanjali), no. 62 [text unavailable]
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 18
Word count: 162