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Saturday 19 April 2014

Ravindranath Tagore

  • Rabindranath Tagore
    Author
  • Rabindranath Tagore, also written Rabīndranātha Thākura, sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Wikipedia
  • BornMay 7, 1861, Kolkata
  • DiedAugust 7, 1941, Kolkata

  • Gitanjali: Selected Poems

    "Song Offerings"
    Translations made by the author from the original Bengali.

    Mind Without Fear
    Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
    Where knowledge is free;
    Where the world has not been broken up
    into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
    Where words come out from the depth of truth;
    Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
    Where the clear stream of reason
    has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
    Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action---
    Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
    Little Flute
    Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail
    vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.
    This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales,
    and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.
    At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in
    joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.
    Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine.
    Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.
    Purity
    Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing
    that thy living touch is upon all my limbs.
    I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing
    that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind.
    I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my
    love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart.
    And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it
    is thy power gives me strength to act.
    Moment's Indulgence
    I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works
    that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.
    Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,
    and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.
    Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and
    the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.
    Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing
    dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.
    Flower
    Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it
    droop and drop into the dust.
    I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of
    pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am
    aware, and the time of offering go by.
    Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint, use this flower
    in thy service and pluck it while there is time.
    Fool
    O Fool, try to carry thyself upon thy own shoulders!
    O beggar, to come beg at thy own door!
    Leave all thy burdens on his hands who can bear all,
    and never look behind in regret.
    Thy desire at once puts out the light from the lamp it touches with its breath.
    It is unholy---take not thy gifts through its unclean hands.
    Accept only what is offered by sacred love.
    Leave This
    Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!
    Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?
    Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!
    He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground
    and where the pathmaker is breaking stones.
    He is with them in sun and in shower,
    and his garment is covered with dust.
    Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!
    Deliverance?
    Where is this deliverance to be found?
    Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation;
    he is bound with us all for ever.
    Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense!
    What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained?
    Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.
    Journey Home
    The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.
    I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my
    voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet.
    It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself,
    and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.
    The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own,
    and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.
    My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said `Here art thou!'
    The question and the cry `Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand
    streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am!'
    Song Unsung
    The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.
    I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.
    The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set;
    only there is the agony of wishing in my heart.
    The blossom has not opened; only the wind is sighing by.
    I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice;
    only I have heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house.
    The livelong day has passed in spreading his seat on the floor;
    but the lamp has not been lit and I cannot ask him into my house.
    I live in the hope of meeting with him; but this meeting is not yet.
    Strong Mercy
    My desires are many and my cry is pitiful,
    but ever didst thou save me by hard refusals;
    and this strong mercy has been wrought into my life through and through.
    Day by day thou art making me worthy of the simple,
    great gifts that thou gavest to me unasked---this sky and the light, this body and the
    life and the mind---saving me from perils of overmuch desire.
    There are times when I languidly linger
    and times when I awaken and hurry in search of my goal;
    but cruelly thou hidest thyself from before me.
    Day by day thou art making me worthy of thy full acceptance by
    refusing me ever and anon, saving me from perils of weak, uncertain desire.
    Patience
    If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it.
    I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil
    and its head bent low with patience.
    The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish,
    and thy voice pour down in golden streams breaking through the sky.
    Then thy words will take wing in songs from every one of my birds' nests,
    and thy melodies will break forth in flowers in all my forest groves.
    Lotus
    On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying,
    and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.
    Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my
    dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind.
    That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to
    me that is was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion.
    I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that this
    perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart.
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