Waiting by Rabindranath Tagore
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….. I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice; only I […]
Waiting For The Beloved — English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
You have chosen this stormy night The sky is hopelessly crying I have no sleep in my eyes Opening my door Again and again I am looking outside I see nothing My mind is full of worries Where runs your way Is it along the bank of the river Or along the verge of the […]
Tumi Sandhyar Meghamala – You Are A Cluster Of Clouds – Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
I have sought only you all my life It is you who fills my empty sky I have made you with the sweet fancies of my mind You are mine, you are mine O you wanderer of my boundless sky. With the blood of my heart I have beautified your feet My evening dreams are […]
This Dog by Rabindranath Tagore
প্রত্যহ প্রভাতকালে ভক্ত এ কুকুর স্তব্ধ হয়ে বসে থাকে আসনের কাছে যতক্ষণে সঙ্গ তার না করি স্বীকার করস্পর্শ দিয়ে । এটুকু স্বীকৃতি লাভ করি সর্বাঙ্গে তরঙ্গি উঠে আনন্দপ্রবাহ । বাক্যহীন প্রাণীলোক-মাঝে এই জীব শুধু ভালো মন্দ সব ভেদ করি দেখেছে সম্পূর্ণ মানুষেরে ; দেখেছে আনন্দে যারে প্রাণ দেওয়া যায় যারে ঢেলে দেওয়া যায় অহেতুক প্রেম […]
The Tame Bird Was In A Cage by Rabindranath Tagore
They met when the time came, it was a decree of fate. The free bird cries, “O my love, let us fly to the wood.” The cage bird whispers, “Come hither, let us both live in the cage.” Says the free bird, “Among bars, where is there room to spread one’s wings?” “Alas,” cries the […]
The Sun Of The First Day by Rabindranath Tagore
Put the question To the new manifestation of life- Who are you? There was no answer. Years passed by. The last sun of the last day Uttered the question on the shore of the western sea In the hush of evening- Who are you? No answer came again. ————— The End And that’s the End […]
The Portrait — English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
Drawn on a canvas? Those distant galaxies Which crowd the skies And travel day and night Through darkness with their candles The planets, the sun and the stars Aren’t you real like them O you portrait Are you a mere portrait? Here everything moves In its midst Why do you stand still? Join those who […]
The Music Of The Rains – English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
When it rains in pattering sounds I cannot tell how I feel So bewildered is my mind. It seems as if someone has left After calling and calling And knocking at my door at night When in rainy days It rains in pattering sounds. Be kind to me, my love and light up my heart […]
The Merchant by Rabindranath Tagore
into strange lands. Imagine that my boat is ready at the landing fully laden. Now think well, mother, before you say what I shall bring for you when I come back. Mother, do you want heaps and heaps of gold? There, by the banks of golden streams, fields are full of golden harvest. And in […]
The Lost Star — English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
In the vast blue sky All the stars began to shine. In the milky way With this new world in their front All the gods sat in rows and began to sing, ‘O what joy! What perfection! A great piece of music, in perfect rhythm – These planets, this moon and this sun!’ But someone […]
The Last Bargain by Rabindranath Tagore
Sword in hand, the King came in his chariot. He held my hand and said, “I will hire you with my power.” But his power counted for nought, and he went away in his chariot. In the heat of the midday the houses stood with shut doors. I wandered along the crooked lane. An old […]
The Kiss by Rabindranath Tagore
Two drinking each other’s heart, it seems. Two roving loves who have left home, pilgrims to the confluence of lips. Two waves rise by the law of love to break and die on two sets of lips. Two wild desires craving each other meet at last at the body’s limits. Love’s writing a song in […]
The Kiss — English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
Seem to whisper into each other’s ears They seem to suck each other’s heart Two loves Leaving their homes For an unknown land Seem to have met At the confluence of their lips Two waves Rising in the tides of love Break and meet At the beach of lips Two passions Asking each other Have […]
The Home by Rabindranath Tagore
hiding its last gold like a miser. The daylight sank deeper and deeper into the darkness, and the widowed land, whose harvest had been reaped, lay silent. Suddenly a boy’s shrill voice rose into the sky. He traversed the dark unseen, leaving the track of his song across the hush of the evening. His village […]
The Hero — English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
I was travelling with my mother In a foreign land And going to a far away place. Mother, you were in a palanquin With its doors slightly ajar And I was cantering along On a chestnut horse Raising clouds of dust. When in the west the sun set And it was evening It seemed we […]
The Golden Boat by Rabindranath Tagore
I sit on the river bank, sad and alone. The sheaves lie gathered, harvest has ended, The river is swollen and fierce in its flow. As we cut the paddy it started to rain. One small paddy-field, no one but me – Flood-waters twisting and swirling everywhere. Trees on the far bank; smear shadows like […]
The Gardener XXVII: Trust Love by Rabindranath Tagore
Do not close up your heart.” “Ah no, my friend, your words are dark, I cannot understand them.” “Pleasure is frail like a dewdrop, while it laughs it dies. But sorrow is strong and abiding. Let sorrowful love wake in your eyes.” “Ah no, my friend, your words are dark, I cannot understand them.” “The […]
The Gardener XXVI: What Comes From Your Willing Hands by Rabindranath Tagore
hands I take. I beg for nothing more.” “Yes, yes, I know you, modest mendicant, you ask for all that one has.” “If there be a stray flower for me I will wear it in my heart.” “But if there be thorns?” “I will endure them.” “Yes, yes, I know you, modest mendicant, you ask […]
The Gardener XXIX: Speak To Me My Love by Rabindranath Tagore
words what you sang. The night is dark. The stars are lost in clouds. The wind is sighing through the leaves. I will let loose my hair. My blue cloak will cling round me like night. I will clasp your head to my bosom; and there in the sweet loneliness murmur on your heart. I […]
The Gardener XI: Come As You Are by Rabindranath Tagore
your toilet. If your braided hair has loosened if the parting of your hair be not straight, if the ribbons of your bodice be not fastened, do not mind. Come as you are; do not loiter over your toilet. Come, with quick steps over the grass. If the raddle come from your feet because of […]
The Gardener LXXIX: I Often Wonder by Rabindranath Tagore
the boundaries of recognition between man and the beast whose heart knows no spoken language. Through what primal paradise in a remote morning of creation ran the simple path by which their hearts visited each other. Those marks of their constant tread have not been effaced though their kinship has been long forgotten. Yet suddenly […]
The Gardener LVII: I Plucked Your Flower by Rabindranath Tagore
I pressed it to my heart and the thorn pricked. When the day waned and it darkened, I found that the flower had faded, but the pain remained. More flowers will come to you with perfume and pride, O world! But my time for flower-gathering is over, and through the dark night I have not […]
The Gardener LV: It Was Mid-Day by Rabindranath Tagore
away . The sun was strong in the sky. I had done my work and sat alone on my balcony when you went away. Fitful gusts came winnowing through the smells of may distant fields. The doves cooed tireless in the shade, and a bee strayed in my room hum- ming the news of many […]
The Call Of The Far — English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
I am athirst for the far. My time passes by And in an absent mind I keep waiting at my window Hoping and hoping you will come. O how my entire being Is eager for your intimate touch! O you far, O you boundless far So irresistible is the call of your flute But I […]
The Beginning by Rabindranath Tagore
its mother. She answered, half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast- “You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling. You were in the dolls of my childhood’s games; and when with clay I made the image of my god every morning, I made the unmade you then. You […]
The Astronomer by Rabindranath Tagore
entangled among the beaches of that Dadam tree, couldn’t somebody catch it?” But dada laughed at me and said, “Baby, you are the silliest child I have ever known. The moon is ever so far from us, how could anybody catch it?” I said, “Dada, how foolish you are! When mother looks out of her […]
Religious Obsession — translation from Dharmamoha by Rabindranath Tagore
He is blind He only kills and gets killed. Even an atheist is blessed Because he doesn’t have the vanity of any faith. Humbly he lights up his reason Defies the authority of scriptures And seeks only the good of men. He who kills as infidels The followers of other faiths Dishonours his own faith […]
Poems On Time by Rabindranath Tagore
and has time enough. ~ Time is a wealth of change, but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth. ~ Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, […]
Poems On Man by Rabindranath Tagore
to drown his own clamour of silence. ~ Man is immortal; therefore he must die endlessly. For life is a creative idea; it can only find itself in changing forms. ~ Man’s abiding happiness is not in getting anything but in giving himself up to what is greater than himself, to ideas which are larger […]
Poems On Love by Rabindranath Tagore
it seeks to prove inward joy by outward beauty. ~ Love does not claim possession, but gives freedom. ~ Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it. ~ Love’s gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, […]
Poems On Life by Rabindranath Tagore
we earn it by giving it. ~ Let the dead have the immortality of fame, but the living the immortality of love. ~ Life’s errors cry for the merciful beauty that can modulate their isolation into a harmony with the whole. ~ Life, like a child, laughs, shaking its rattle of death as it runs. […]
Poems On Beauty by Rabindranath Tagore
when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror. ~ Beauty is in the ideal of perfect harmony which is in the universal being; truth the perfect comprehension of the universal mind. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the […]
One Day In Spring…. by Rabindranath Tagore
In my lonely woods, In the lovely form of the Beloved. Came, to give to my songs, melodies, To give to my dreams, sweetness. Suddenly a wild wave Broke over my heart’s shores And drowned all language. To my lips no name came, She stood beneath the tree, turned, Glanced at my face, made sad […]
On The Nature Of Love by Rabindranath Tagore
a million people thread it in a million ways. We have trysts to keep in the darkness, but where or with whom – of that we are unaware. But we have this faith – that a lifetime’s bliss will appear any minute, with a smile upon its lips. Scents, touches, sounds, snatches of songs brush […]
My Friend, Come In These Rains — English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
Evading all Like silent night In stealthy steps you have come. The morning has closed its eyes The wind is hopelessly sighing And the blue naked sky Is overcast with endless clouds In the woodland the birds do not sing In every home the doors are closed You are a lonely wayfarer on a lonely […]
Lover’s Gifts LVI: The Evening Was Lonely by Rabindranath Tagore
heart became dry, and it seemed to me that beauty was a thing fashioned by the traders in words. Tired I shut the book and snuffed the candle. In a moment the room was flooded with moonlight. Spirit of Beauty, how could you, whose radiance overbrims the sky, stand hidden behind a candle’s tiny flame? […]
Lord Of My Life by Rabindranath Tagore
art thou pleased, Lord of my Life? For I give to thee my cup filled with all the pain and delight that the crushed grapes of my heart had surrendered, I wove with rhythm of colors and song cover for thy bed, And with the molten gold of my desires I fashioned playthings for thy […]
Lamp Of Love by Rabindranath Tagore
Kindle it with the burning fire of desire! There is the lamp but never a flicker of a flame–is such thy fate, my heart? Ah, death were better by far for thee! Misery knocks at thy door, and her message is that thy lord is wakeful, and he calls thee to the love-tryst through the […]
Kinu Goala’s Alley – English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
Named after Kinu the milkman. By its side stands A two-storey building Its ground floor room Is enclosed by iron railings. It is thoroughly damp Here and there its walls Bear ugly damp marks In places their plasters are also peeling off. On its door hangs a rag Torn from a bale of plain cloth […]
In The Dusky Path Of A Dream by Rabindranath Tagore
Her house stood at the end of a desolate street. In the evening breeze her pet peacock sat drowsing on its perch, and the pigeons were silent in their corner. She set her lamp down by the portal and stood before me. She raised her large eyes to my face and mutely asked, “Are you […]