The Gardener XX: Day After Day He Comes by Rabindranath Tagore
away. Go, and give him a flower from my hair, my friend. If he asks who was it that sent it, I entreat you do not tell him my name– for he only comes and goes away. He sits on the dust under the tree. Spread there a seat with flowers and leaves, my friend. […]
The Gardener XVI: Hands Cling to Eyes by Rabindranath Tagore
on eyes: thus begins the record of our hearts. It is the moonlit night of March; the sweet smell of henna is in the air; my flute lies on the earth neglected and your garland of flowers is unfinished. This love between you and me is simple as a song. Your veil of the saffron […]
The Gardener XLVIII: Free Me by Rabindranath Tagore
sweetness, my love! Nor more of this wine of kisses. This mist of heavy incense stifles my heart. Open the doors, make room for the morning light. I am lost in you, wrapped in the folds of your caresses. Free me from your spells, and give me back the manhood to offer you my freed […]
The Gardener XLVI: You Left Me by Rabindranath Tagore
I thought I should mourn for you and set your solitary image in my heart wrought in a golden song. But ah, my evil fortune, time is short. Youth wanes year after year; the spring days are fugitive; the frail flowers die for nothing, and the wise man warns me that life is but a […]
The Gardener XLV: To the Guests by Rabindranath Tagore
God’s speed and brush away all traces of their steps. Take to your bosom with a smile what is easy and simple and near. To-day is the festival of phantoms that know not when they die. Let your laughter be but a meaning- less mirth like twinkles of light on the ripples. Let your life […]
The Gardener XLIV: Reverend Sir, Forgive by Rabindranath Tagore
sinners. Spring winds to-day are blowing in wild eddies, driving dust and dead leaves away, and with them your lessons are all lost. Do not say, father, that life is a vanity. For we have made truce with death for once, and only for a few fragrant hours we two have been made immortal. Even […]
The Gardener XLIII: No, My Friends by Rabindranath Tagore
ascetic, whatever you may say. I shall never be and ascetic if she does not take the vow with me. It is my firm resolve that if I cannot find a shady shelter and a companion for my penance, I shall never turn ascetic. No, my friends, I shall never leave my hearth and home, […]
The Gardener XLII: O Mad, Superbly Drunk by Rabindranath Tagore
If you kick open your doors and play the fool in public; If you empty your bag in a night, and snap your fingers at prudence; If you walk in curious paths and play with useless things; Reck not rhyme or reason; If unfurling your sails before the storm you snap the rudder in two, […]
The Gardener XL: An Unbelieving Smile by Rabindranath Tagore
eyes when I come to you to take my leave. I have done it so often that you think I will soon return. To tell you the truth I have the same doubt in my mind. For the spring days come again time after time; the full moon takes leave and comes on another visit, […]
The Gardener XIX: You Walked by Rabindranath Tagore
with the full pitcher upon your hip. Why did you swiftly turn your face and peep at me through your fluttering veil? That gleaming look from the dark came upon me like a breeze that sends a shiver through the rippling water and sweeps away to the shadowy shore. It came to me like the […]
The Gardener XIV: I Was Walking by the Road by Rabindranath Tagore
know why, when the noonday was past and bamboo branches rustled in the wind. The prone shadows with their out- stretched arms clung to the feet of the hurrying light. The koels were weary of their songs. I was walking by the road, I do not know why. The hut by the side of the […]
The Gardener XIII: I Asked Nothing by Rabindranath Tagore
edge of the wood behind the tree. Languor was still upon the eyes of the dawn, and the dew in the air. The lazy smell of the damp grass hung in the thin mist above the earth. Under the banyan tree you were milking the cow with your hands, tender and fresh as butter. And […]
The Gardener X: Let Your Work Be, Bride by Rabindranath Tagore
guest has come. Do you hear, he is gently shaking the chain which fastens the door? See that your anklets make no loud noise, and that your step is not over- hurried at meeting him. Let your work be, bride, the guest had come in the evening. No, it is not the ghostly wind, bride, […]
The Gardener LXXXIV: Over the Green by Rabindranath Tagore
sweep the shadows of the autumn clouds followed by the swift-chasing sun. The bees forget to sip their honey; drunken with light they foolishly hover and hum. The ducks in the islands of the river clamour in joy for mere nothing. Let none go back home, brothers, this morning, let none go to work. Let […]
The Gardener LXXXIII: She Dwelt on the Hillside by Rabindranath Tagore
of a maize-field, near the spring that flows in laughing rills through the solemn shadows of ancient trees. The women came there to fill their jars, and travellers would sit there to rest and talk. She worked and dreamed daily to the tune of the bubbling stream. One evening the stranger came down from the […]
The Gardener LXXXI: Why Do You Whisper So Faintly by Rabindranath Tagore
my ears, O Death, my Death? When the flowers droop in the evening and cattle come back to their stalls, you stealthily come to my side and speak words that I do not understand. Is this how you must woo and win me with the opiate of drowsy murmur and cold kisses, O Death, my […]
The Gardener LXXVI: The Fair Was On by Rabindranath Tagore
It had rained from the early morning and the day came to its end. Brighter than all the gladness of the crowd was the bright smile of a girl who bought for a farthing a whistle of palm leaf. The shrill joy of that whistle floated above all laughter and noise. An endless throng of […]
The Gardener LXXV: At Midnight by Rabindranath Tagore
announced: “This is the time to give up my home and seek for God. Ah, who has held me so long in delusion here?” God whispered, “I,” but the ears of the man were stopped. With a baby asleep at her breast lay his wife, peacefully sleeping on one side of the bed. The man […]
The Gardener LXVIII: None Lives For Ever, Brother by Rabindranath Tagore
nothing lasts for long. Keep that in mind and rejoice. Our life is not the one old burden, our path is not the one long journey. One sole poet has not to sing one aged song. The flower fades and dies; but he who wears the flower has not to mourn for it for ever. […]
The Gardener LXIX: I Hunt for the Golden Stag by Rabindranath Tagore
You may smile, my friends, but I pursue the vision that eludes me. I run across hills and dales, I wander through nameless lands, because I am hunting for the golden stag. You come and buy in the market and go back to your homes laden with goods, but the spell of the homeless winds […]
The Gardener LXIV: I Spent My Day by Rabindranath Tagore
hot dust of the road. Now, in the cool of the evening, I knock at the door of the inn. It is deserted and in ruins. A grim ashath tree spreads its hungry clutching roots through the gaping fissures of the walls. Days have been when wayfarers came here to wash their weary feet. They […]
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 Gardener LIX: O Woman by Rabindranath Tagore
handiwork of God, but also of men; these are ever endowing you with beauty from their hearts. Poets are weaving for you a web with threads of golden imagery; painters are giving your form ever new immortality. The sea gives its pearls, the mines their gold, the summer gardens their flowers to deck you, to […]
The Gardener LI: Then Finish the Last Song by Rabindranath Tagore
leave. Forget this night when the night is no more. Whom do I try to clasp in my arms? Dreams can never be made captive. My eager hands press emptiness to my heart and it bruises my breast. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and […]
The Gardener IX: When I Go Alone at Night by Rabindranath Tagore
love-tryst, birds do not sing, the wind does not stir, the houses on both sides of the street stand silent. It is my own anklets that grow loud at every step and I am ashamed. When I sit on my balcony and listen for his footsteps, leaves do not rustle on the trees, and the […]
The Gardener IV: Ah Me by Rabindranath Tagore
house by the road to the market town? They moor their laden boats near my trees. They come and go and wander at their will. I sit and watch them; my time wears on. Turn them away I cannot. And thus my days pass by. Night and day their steps sound by my door. Vainly […]
The Further Bank by Rabindranath Tagore
Where those boats are tied to the bamboo poles in a line; Where men cross over in their boats in the morning with ploughs on their shoulders to till their far-away fields; Where the cowherds make their lowing cattle swim across to the riverside pasture; Whence they all come back home in the evening, leaving […]
The Flower-School by Rabindranath Tagore
The moist east wind comes marching over the heath to blow its bagpipes among the bamboos. Then crowds of flowers come out of a sudden, from nobody knows where, and dance upon the grass in wild glee. Mother, I really think the flowers go to school underground. They do their lessons with doors shut, and […]
The First Jasmines by Rabindranath Tagore
I seem to remember the first day when I filled my hands with these jasmines, these white jasmines. I have loved the sunlight, the sky and the green earth; I have heard the liquid murmur of the river thorough the darkness of midnight; Autumn sunsets have come to me at the bend of a road […]
The End by Rabindranath Tagore
When in the paling darkness of the lonely dawn you stretch out your arms for your baby in the bed, I shall say, “Baby is not here!”-mother, I am going. I shall become a delicate draught of air and caress you and I shall be ripples in the water when you bathe, and kiss you […]
The Child-Angel by Rabindranath Tagore
to their wrangling. Let your life come amongst them like a flame of light, my child, unflickering and pure, and delight them into silence. They are cruel in their greed and their envy, their words are like hidden knives thirsting for blood. Go and stand amidst their scowling hearts, my child, and let your gentle […]
The Chanpa Flower by Rabindranath Tagore
branch high up that tree, and shook in the wind with laughter and danced upon the newly budded leaves, would you know me, mother? You would call, “Baby, where are you?” and I should laugh to myself and keep quite quiet. I should slyly open my petals and watch you at your work. When after […]
The Boat by Rabindranath Tagore
The languid hours pass by on the shore—Alas for me! The spring has done its flowering and taken leave. And now with the burden of faded futile flowers I wait and linger. The waves have become clamorous, and upon the bank in the shady lane the yellow leaves flutter and fall. What emptiness do you […]
The Banyan Tree by Rabindranath Tagore
have you forgotten the little chile, like the birds that have nested in your branches and left you? Do you not remember how he sat at the window and wondered at the tangle of your roots and plunged underground? The women would come to fill their jars in the pond, and your huge black shadow […]
Superior by Rabindranath Tagore
She does not know the difference between the lights in the streets and the stars. When we play at eating with pebbles, she thinks they are real food, and tries to put them into her mouth. When I open a book before her and ask her to learn her a, b, c, she tears the […]
Strong Mercy by Rabindranath Tagore
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 […]
Still Heart by Rabindranath Tagore
I know that the time has come for thee to take it. What there is to do will be instantly done. Vain is this struggle. Then take away your hands and silently put up with your defeat, my heart, and think it your good fortune to sit perfectly still where you are placed. These my […]
Song Unsung by Rabindranath Tagore
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 […]
Sleep by Rabindranath Tagore
let me give myself up to sleep without struggle, resting my trust upon thee. Let me not force my flagging spirit into a poor preparation for thy worship. It is thou who drawest the veil of night upon the tired eyes of the day to renew its sight in a fresher gladness of awakening. ————— […]
Sit Smiling by Rabindranath Tagore
They see your pictures in all works of mine. They come and ask me, `Who is he?’ I know not how to answer them. I say, `Indeed, I cannot tell.’ They blame me and they go away in scorn. And you sit there smiling. I put my tales of you into lasting songs. The secret […]