Shepherd Scholar Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Shepherd Scholar,
In the small hilly township,
We used to meet and discuss
Te problems of the age,
The angst and bewilderment,
Remedy and catharsis,
In the country home
We used to meet
While going on the ways,
A scholar of the nondescript country,
You used to live as an agriculturist,
A dairy farmer,
A mud-house-man,
A cottager in the township.

A man of simple living and high thinking,
You used to think and dream
Highly of,
An abnormal reader and marker
Of the ways of the world and life,
You were indifferent,
Indifferent
To progress and development,
A scholar lost into the thoughts
And visions of the past,
Scholarly, but shepherdish,
Not at all medieval and superstitious.


You used to smile when you used to see
The labour school girls
Coming from the school,
For the labourers' wards
Earning and learning,
You used to feel happy
When the shepherd boys and girls
Used to pluck the wild blooms
And used to give to you
While crossing the dry river bed,
Scholar, today you are dead and gone,
But the memories ares till fresh in us.