"The writing of the poem gives me more pleasure than the writing of a thousand times as much prose: I am not sure why. In a poem one's emotions take on such perfection of form: they can almost be grasped and held in the hand."
(Selected Letters, Glimpses of Bengal)
‘Who’ll do my work?’ says the setting sun.
The world of Nature offers no answer.
A clay-lamp speaks: ‘O Lord and Master,
I’m willing to do what little I can.’
(Kanika)
"I bow, I bow to my beautiful motherland Bengal!
To your river-banks, to your winds in that cool and console;
Your plains, whose dust the sky bends down to kiss;
Your shrouded villages, that are nests of shade and peace;
Your leafy mango-woods, where the herd-boys play;
Your deep ponds, loving and cool as the midnight sky;”
(Citra)
"The kerosene-lantern says to the taper,
'I'll wring your neck if you say, we're kin.'
Whereas to the moon he says, 'Come in:
I welcome you warmly as my brother,"
(Kanika)
Palm tree: single-legged giant
topping the other trees,
peering at the firmament-
It longs to pierce the black cloud-ceiling
and fly away, away
if only it had wings.
(Sisu Bholanath)
"Ceaseless is the welter of rain that
wearies the sky.
Alas for the forsaken ! Alas for the
homeless wanderer!
The shrieks of the wind die away in
sobs and sighs.
What flying phantom does it pursue
across the pathless wild?
The night is hopeless like the eyes of
blind"
Casting off
All that is weak, infirm and worn,
Scatter life in an endless stream.
With the intoxication of Green
Thou had made the earth brim,
And the light flashes in the crumbling cloud!
Throw round the neck of Spring thy own garland,
Come! O Deathless, the Evergreen!”
(Balaka)
"I have seen, have heard, have lived;
in the depth of the known have felt
the truth that exceeds all knowledge
which fills my heart with wonder and
I sing"
(Prabahini)
"Come young nations,
proclaim the fight for freedom,
raise up the banner of invincible faith,
Build bridges with your life across the
gaping earth blasted by hatred,
and march forward."
(The poem was recited in Canada, 1939)
"If the day ends
And the birds
No longer sing,
If the tired wind
No longer blows
Then lay me down
Deep inside the obscure
Impervious darkness
With dreams,
Secretly and gently
As you cover the earth,
Or eyes in slumber
Or the lotus blossom
At night."
(Gitenjali)
"As my songs
End today
They remind me
Again and again
That the end
Has also
An endless strain."
(Gitanjali)
"That night
When the storm
Shattered my doors
Unaware you came
To my room.
All plunged into darkness
And the candle went out.
For whom did I stretch
My hands to the sky?”
(Gitabitan)
"Blessed am I to have been born in this land,
and that I had the luck to love her"
(One of the Swadeshi songs of Tagore sung by Revolutionary Hero Ullaskar on hearing in the court room about his death sentence)
Life and death we hold as slaves
Fearless is our heart.
Time has come
To cut the old mooring
(Swadeshi song)
“Let honour come to me from Thee through a call
to some desperate task.
In the pride of poignant suffering.
Lull me not into languid dreams;
Shake me out of this cringing in the dust,
Out of the fetters that shackle our mind.
Make futile our destiny;
Out of the unreason that bends our dignity
Down under the indiscriminate feet of dictators;
Shatter this age-long shame of ours,
And raise our head
into the boundless sky,
into the generous light,
into the air of freedom"
(Calcutta University Convocation Address, 1937) |
"The political civilisation which has sprung up from the soil of Europe and is over-running the whole world, like some prolific weed, is based upon exclusiveness. It is always watchful to keep the aliens at bay or to exterminate them......... It is always afraid of other races achieving eminence, naming it as a peril and tries to thwart all symptoms of greatness outside its own boundaries, forcing down races of men who are weaker, to be eternally fixed in their weakness." "We cannot help loving her with all our heart and paying her the best homage of our admiration- the Europe who in her literature and art, pours out an inexhaustible cascade of beauty and truth fertilising all
countries and all time; ......"
"Those of us in India who have come under the delusion that mere political freedom will make us free have accepted their lessons from the West as the gospel truth and lost their faith in humanity."
(Lectures) |
