The Poetry and Songs of Tagore!

Rabindranath Tagore was a recognized poet, philosopher and thinker. In 1913 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. His poetry calls out for a re-connection with the divine in every moment we live on Earth. The first few poems are from Tagore's Gitanjali. The others are selected from a book titled, The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc.

Worker Of The Universe

It is only the revelation of You as the Infinite

that is endlessly new and eternally beautiful in us

and that gives the only meaning to our self when

we feel Your rhythmic throb as soul-life, the whole

world in our own souls; then are we free.

O Worker of the universe! Let the irresistible

current of Your universal energy come like the

impetuous south wind of spring; let it come

rushing over the vast field of human life. Let our

newly awakened powers cry out for unlimited

fulfillment in leaf and flower and fruit.

- from the book, The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc.

Life of My Life

Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body

pure, knowing that Your living touch is upon all

my limbs.

I shall ever try to keep all untruths from my

thoughts, knowing that You are the 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

You have Your seat in the inmost shrine of my

heart.

It shall be my endeavor to reveal You in my actions, knowing it is Your power that gives me

strength to act.

- from the book, The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc.

The Grasp Of Your Hand

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,

but to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but

for the heart to conquer it.

Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,

but hope for the patience to win my freedom.

Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling

Your mercy in my success alone; but let me find

the grasp of Your hand in my failure.

- from the book, The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc.

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.

-Gitanjali

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 wilderness 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!"

-Gitanjali

I drive down into the depth of the ocean of

forms, hoping to gain the perfect pearl of the formless.

No more sailing from harbour to harbour

with this my weather-beaten boat.

The days are long passed when my sport was to be tossed on waves.

And now I am eager to die into the deathless.

Into the audience hall by the fathomless abyss where swells up the music of toneless

strings I shall take this harp of my life.

I shall tune it to the notes of forever,

and, when it has sobbed out its last utterance, lay down my silent harp at

the feet of the silent.

-Gitanjali, translated from original Bengali by Tagore

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 it 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.

-Gitanjali, translated from original Bengali by Tagore