The poem
I passed along the water's edge below the humid trees, My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees, My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moor-fowl pace All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak: Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky. The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye. I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk: Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk, For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide. A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies, He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me? I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say: Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay, He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.
The Indian Upon God
This poem makes me think of the arrogance of humans. In the poem a man is walking in a forest along a river and passes some animals and plants. He hears what they say as he does. Each one wonders of a "God" up in the sky, and each one in the image of themselves, just as man perceives God as in the image of man. It makes you think if all those creatures believe in a god that is alike to them how is it that He be one…
Read the whole commentThis poem makes me think of the arrogance of humans. In the poem a man is walking in a forest along a river and passes some animals and plants. He hears what they say as he does. Each one wonders of a "God" up in the sky, and each one in the image of themselves, just as man perceives God as in the image of man. It makes you think if all those creatures believe in a god that is alike to them how is it that He be one set thing? How can God be in the image of man? Some believe it so because they believe man to be the purest of creatures and how could he be in the image of anything else, but we, the brightest of creatures? God is an image that each being determines themselves. Man sees himself as the superior being. God must be in the image of Man.