My hopes soared, and I stood waiting for alms to be given and wealth scattered in the dust. Your chariot stopped right before me, you looked down with a smile, and I knew that the luck of my days had come. Until suddenly you held out your palm and said, "What will you give?"
Begging from a beggar! What a kingly jest--I was confused and dismayed, but I groped in my sack until I brought out one grain of wheat, the tiniest thing I could afford.
I got home that night and emptied my sack on the floor, only to spy a grain of gold gleaming there in the heap. Then how bitterly I wept. If you did this for a tiny grain of wheat, what would you return if I had given you everything?
By Rabindranath Tagore
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