I spent my day on the scorching <br />hot dust of the road. <br />Now, in the cool of the evening, I <br />knock at the door of the inn. It is <br />deserted and in ruins. <br />A grim ashath tree spreads its <br />hungry clutching roots through the <br />gaping fissures of the walls. <br />Days have been when wayfarers <br />came here to wash their weary feet. <br />They spread their mats in the <br />courtyard in the dim light of the <br />early moon, and sat and talked of <br />strange lands. <br />They woke refreshed in the morning <br />when birds made them glad, and <br />friendly flowers nodded their heads <br />at them from the wayside. <br />But no lighted lamp awaited me <br />when I came here. <br />The black smudges of smoke left by <br />many a forgotten evening lamp stare, <br />like blind eyes, from the wall. <br />Fireflies flit in the bush near the <br />dried-up pond, and bamboo branches <br />fling their shadows on the grass- <br />grown path. <br />I am the guest of no one at the end <br />of my day. <br />The long night is before me, and I <br />am tired.<br /><br />Rabindranath Tagore<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-gardener-lxiv-i-spent-my-day/
