Canto 22The Tiger and the Deer
Book 16. Part Seven - Pondicherry Circa 1927 – 1947
Poems Published in On Quantitative Metre
The Tiger and the Deer
Brilliant, crouching, slouching, what crept through the green heart
of the forest,
5Gleaming eyes and mighty chest and soft soundless paws of
grandeur and murder?
The wind slipped through the leaves as if afraid lest its voice and the
noise of its steps perturb the pitiless Splendour,
Hardly daring to breathe. But the great beast crouched and crept,
10and crept and crouched a last time, noiseless, fatal,
Till suddenly death leaped on the beautiful wild deer as it drank
Unsuspecting at the great pool in the forest’s coolness and shadow,
And it fell and, torn, died remembering its mate left sole in the deep
woodland, —
15Destroyed, the mild harmless beauty by the strong cruel beauty in
Nature.
But a day may yet come when the tiger crouches and leaps no more
in the dangerous heart of the forest,
As the mammoth shakes no more the plains of Asia;
20Still then shall the beautiful wild deer drink from the coolness of
great pools in the leaves’ shadow.
The mighty perish in their might;
The slain survive the slayer.