# The Gardener, by Rabindranath Tagore, II


![](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/56/171182413_2d4a7785d9_m.jpg)3.

In the morning I cast my net into the sea.

I dragged up from the dark abyss things of strange aspect and strange
beauty - some shone like a smile, and some glistened like tears, and
some were flushed like the cheeks of a bride.

When with the day’s burden I went home, my love was sitting in the
garden, idly tearing the leaves of a flower.

I hesitated for a moment, and then placed at her feet all that I had
dragged up, and stood silent.

She glanced at them and said, ‘What strange things are these? I know not
of what use they are!’

I bowed my head in shame and thought, ‘I have not fought for these, I
did not buy them in the market; they are not fit gifts for her.’

Then the whole night through I flung them one by one into the street.

In the morning travelers came; they picked them up and carried them into
far countries.

(thanks to [christin-g-O @
flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/christing) for the picture, full
text at [Wikisource](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Gardener))