When I Bring to You Colour'd Toys

"When I Bring to You Color'd Toys" is the first song in John Alden Carpenter's song cycle Gitanjali: Song Offerings based on the Nobel Prize winning poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Date: 1914Composer: John Alden CarpenterText: Rabindranath Tagore

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Text

When I Bring to You Color’d Toys, My Child
by Rabindranath Tagore

When I bring to you colour’d toys, my child,
I understand why there is such a play of colours on clouds,
On water, and why flow’rs are painted in tints:
When I give colour’d toys to you, my child.

When I sing to make you dance,
I truly know why there is music in leaves,
And why waves send their chorus of voices
To the heart of the listening earth:
When I sing to make you dance.

When I bring sweet things to your greedy hands,
I know why there is honey in the cup of the flower
And why fruits are secretly filled with sweet juice:
When I bring sweet things to your greedy hands.

Related Information

Books

Sheet Music

Gitanjali

Composer(s): John Alden Carpenter

Song(s): 1. When I Bring to You Colour'd Toys
2. On the Day When Death Will Knock
3. The Sleep That Flits on Baby's Eyes
4. I Am Like a Remnant of a Cloud of Autumn
5. On the Seashore of Endless Worlds
6. Light, My Light

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