Rabindranath Tagore's Poetry

The immortal beauty of Rabindranath Tagore's poetry.

Rabindranath Tagore's poems are as sublime, fresh, soothing, beautiful, lyrical, smooth, flowing, and masterful as they were a hundred years ago.

Read The Gardener, translated to English from the original in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore in 1915.

My favourite verses from The Gardener.

Verse 30

You are the evening cloud floating in the sky of my dreams.
I paint you and fashion you ever with my love longings.
You are my own, my own, Dweller in my endless dreams!

Your feet are rosy-red with the glow of my heart’s desire, Gleaner of my sunset songs!
Your lips are bitter-sweet with the taste of my wine of pain.
You are my own, my own, Dweller in my lonesome dreams!

With the shadow of my passion have I darkened your eyes, Haunter of the depth of my gaze! I have caught you and wrapt you, my love, in the net of my music. You are my own, my own, Dweller in my deathless dreams!

Verse 31

My heart, the bird of the wilderness, has found its sky in your eyes.
They are the cradle of the morning, they are the kingdom of the stars.
My songs are lost in their depths. Let me but soar in that sky, in its lonely immensity.
Let me but cleave its clouds and spread wings in its sunshine.

Beautiful, isn't it?

Verse 85

Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence? I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad. From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before. In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred years.

Tagore and Neruda
Latin American poets like Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral and Mexican poet Octavio Paz have been inspired by Tagore's poetry. I was surprised and happy to read about the popularity of Rabindranath Tagore's poetry in Spain and its influence on Latin American poets. Read this article on Tagore's influence on Spanish and Latin American poetry.

I want to learn Bengali. I can understand Bengali, but to enjoy the beauty of Tagore's lyrical poetry one needs to be able to read Bengali. Bengali and Spanish are beautiful languages.

Read Pablo Neruda's paraphrase of Tagore's verse 30 (Bengali: Tumi Sandhyara Meghmala) from The Gardener in English as In My Sky At Twilight and in Spanish. Pablo Neruda was deeply influenced by Rabindranath Tagore's style of using nature and its colours to write love poetry.

Related Links
- Read Pablo Neruda's Poems.
- Download a PDF of Pablo Neruda's poems. (Size: 400 KB).

Related Post on this Blog
Links to Rabindranath Tagore's Poetry - 28 Nov. 2004.

Have you felt the sublime beauty of Rabindranath Tagore's poetry?

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