All Poems

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Parting Words

© Rabindranath Tagore

When I go from hence
let this be my parting word,
that what I have seen is unsurpassable.

Paper Boats

© Rabindranath Tagore

Day by day I float my paper boats one by one down the running
stream.
In bid black letters I write my name on them and the name of
the village where I live.

Only Thee

© Rabindranath Tagore

That I want thee, only thee---let my heart repeat without end.
All desires that distract me, day and night,
are false and empty to the core.

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.

Old And New

© Rabindranath Tagore

Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not.
Thou hast given me seats in homes not my own.
Thou hast brought the distant near and made a brother of the stranger.

Ocean of Forms

© Rabindranath Tagore

Into the audience hall by the fathomless abyss
where swells up the music of toneless strings
I shall take this harp of my life.

My Song

© Rabindranath Tagore

This song of mine will wind its music around you, my child, like
the fond arms of love.
This song of mine will touch your forehead like a kiss of
blessing.

Moment's Indulgence

© Rabindranath Tagore

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

Maya

© Rabindranath Tagore

That I should make much of myself and turn it on all sides,
thus casting colored shadows on thy radiance
---such is thy Maya.

Lover's Gifts XXXIX: There Is a Looker-On

© Rabindranath Tagore

There is a looker-on who sits behind my eyes. I seems he has seen
things in ages and worlds beyond memory's shore, and those
forgotten sights glisten on the grass and shiver on the leaves. He
has seen under new veils the face of the one beloved, in twilight

Lover's Gifts XXVIII: I Dreamt

© Rabindranath Tagore

I dreamt that she sat by my head, tenderly ruffling my hair with
her fingers, playing the melody of her touch. I looked at her face
and struggled with my tears, till the agony of unspoken words burst
my sleep like a bubble.

Lover's Gifts XXII: I Shall Gladly Suffer

© Rabindranath Tagore

I shall gladly suffer the pride of culture to die out in my house,
if only in some happy future I am born a herd-boy in the Brinda
forest.
The herd-boy who grazes his cattle sitting under the banyan

Lover's Gifts XVIII: Your Days

© Rabindranath Tagore

Your days will be full of cares, if you must give me your heart.
My house by the cross-roads has its doors open and my mind is
absent, -for I sing.
I shall never be made to answer for it, if you must give me

Lover's Gifts XVI: She Dwelt Here by the Pool

She dwelt here by the pool with its landing-stairs in ruins. Many
an evening she had watched the moon made dizzy by the shaking of
bamboo leaves, and on many a rainy day the smell of the wet earth
had come to her over the young shoots of rice.

Lover's Gifts XLVIII: I Travelled the Old Road

I travelled the old road every day, I took my fruits to the market,
my cattle to the meadows, I ferried my boat across the stream and
all the ways were well known to me.
One morning my basket was heavy with wares. Men were busy in

Lover's Gifts XLVII: The Road Is

The road is my wedded companion. She speaks to me under my feet all
day, she sings to my dreams all night.
My meeting with her had no beginning, it begins endlessly at
each daybreak, renewing its summer in fresh flowers and songs, and

Lover's Gifts XLIV: Where Is Heaven

Where is heaven? you ask me, my child,-the sages tell us it is
beyond the limits of birth and death, unswayed by the rhythm of day
and night; it is not of the earth.
But your poet knows that its eternal hunger is for time and

Lover's Gifts XLIII: Dying, You Have Left Behind

Dying, you have left behind you the great sadness of the Eternal
in my life. You have painted my thought's horizon with the sunset
colours of your departure, leaving a track of tears across the
earth to love's heaven. Clasped in your dear arms, life and death