The Old Woodman English Abol Tabol Poem of Sukumar Roy

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The Old Woodman English Abol Tabol Poem of Sukumar Roy THE OLD WOODMAN  By Sukumar Roy (English Translation by Satyajit Ray) The old man doesn't seem to mind  The sun that’s getting hotter  He hums a tune and mumbles words   He sits and licks a wooden stick   That's just been boiled in water   And shakes his balding head;   It seems as if he's twice as wise  As anybody dead.  "The holes you find in wood," he says  "Have reason to be there;  They're caused – and no one knows this yet –   By cobwebs in the air.  But who cares for all this knowledge?"  Screams the old man fuming.  A bunch of dolts – that's what they are,  Pretending and presuming.  I've told them time and time again,  They haven't understood,   What moonless nights are apt to do  The holes that go with wood.”  Graphs and charts and formulas  He scribbles on the wall,  Subdividing different types of wood  And analysing all.  Tasty wood and tangy wood  And wood that's hard to savour,  And all that lies concealed in holes  And all the hidden flavour.  He claps the wooden sticks together  Saying “these are sticks  Which hold no secret from me now that  I know all their tricks.  A 11 the wooden villainy, and  All the wooden wiles,  Wooden ills and wooden woes, and  Beaming wooden smiles.  Some wood is wise and some is not,  But holes are always there,  And only I can see they're caused  By cobwebs in the air."