Rabindranath Tagore

The Gardener 23: Fill Your Pitcher and Come Home

The Gardener 23: Fill Your Pitcher and Come Home - meaning Summary

Call to Return Home

A speaker gently reproaches a beloved who dallies by the water, urging them to stop idle play and "fill your pitcher" so they can return home. Time and nature—flowing dark waters, laughing waves, wandering clouds—mirror the speaker’s plea, marking hours passing while observers smile or whisper. The poem frames a tender insistence on responsibility and reunion, turning simple domestic action into an emblem of coming back to relationship and duty.

Read Complete Analyses

Why do you sit there and jingle your bracelets in mere idle sport? Fill your pitcher. It is time for you to come home. Why do you stir the water with your hands and fitfully glance at the road for some one in mere idle sport? Fill your pitcher and come home. The morning hours pass by -- the dark waters flows on. The waves are laughing and whispering to each other in mere idle sport. The wandering clouds have gathered at the edge of the sky on yonder rise of the land. They linger and look at your face and smile in mere idle sport. Fill your pitcher and come home.

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