Page 65 - English Reader - 6

9 9 Authorship

Authorship

Warm-Up
Warm-Up
In this poem the famous Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore traces a confusing situation
when a child does not understand a word his father writes and wonders why he cannot write
wonderful fairy tales. The boy wonders why his mother gets angry when he writes a, b, c, d in his
father’s notebook or tears a page to make a boat.

You say that father writes a lot of books,
But what he writes I don’t understand

He was reading to you all the evening,

But could you really make out what he meant?
What nice stories, mother, you can tell us!

Why can’t father write like that, I wonder?

Did he never hear from his own mother

Stories of giants and fairies and princesses?
Has he forgotten them all?

Often when he gets late for his bath

You have to and call him an hundred times.

You wait and keep his dishes warm for him,
But he goes on writing and forgets.

Father always plays at making books.

If ever I go to play in father’s room, you come and call me,
‘What a naughty child!’

If I make the slightest noise you say,

‘Don’t you see that father’s at his work?’

What’s the fun of always writing and writing?

When I take up father’s pen or pencil
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