10 best poems of Rabindranath Tagore

10 BEST POEMS OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE

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1. WAITING

The song I came to sing

Remains unsung to this day.

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.

 

I have not seen his face,

Nor have I listened to his voice.

Only I have heard his gentle footsteps,

From the road before my house.

 

But the lamp has not been lit,

And I cannot ask him into my house.

I live in the hope of meeting with him,

But this meeting is not yet.

 

 

2. FRIEND

Art thou abroad on this stormy night

On the journey of love, my friend?

The sky groans like one in despair.

 

I have no sleep tonight,

Ever and again I open my door and look out on

The darkness, my friend!

 

I can see nothing before me.

I wonder where lies the path!

 

By what dim shore of the ink black river,

By what far edge of the frowning forest,

Through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading

Thy course to come to me, my friend?

 

 

3. GITANJALI

Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure.

This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again,

The fillest it ever with fresh life.

 

The little flute of the reed thou hast carried over hills and dales,

And hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

 

At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy

And gives birth to utterance ineffable.

 

The infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine,.

Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.

 

 

4. ON THE NATURE OF LOVE

The night is black and the forest has no end,

A million people thread it in a million ways.

We have trysts to keep in the darkness, but where

or with whom – of that we are unaware.

But we have this faith – that a lifetime’s bliss

Will appear any minute, with a smile upon its lips.

Scents, touches, sounds, snatches of sohgs

Brush us, pass us, give us delightful shocks.

Then peradventure there’s a flash of lightening;

Whomever I see that instant I fall in love with,

I call that person and cry; ‘this life is blest!

For your sake such miles have I traversed!’

All those others who came close and moved off

In the darkness – I don’t know if they exist or not.

 

 

5. PAPER BOATS

Day by day I float my paper boats

One by one down the running stream.

In big black letters I write my name on them

And the name of the villagers where I live.

I hope that someone in some strange land will find them

and know who I am.

 

I load my little boats with shiuli flower from our garden

And hope that these blooms of the dawn will be carried safely

To land in the night.

 

I launch my paper boats and look up into the sky and see the little clouds

Setting thee white bulging sails.

 

I know not what playmate of mine in the sky sends them down

The air to race with my boast!

 

Where night comes I bury my face in my arms and dream that my

Paper boats float on and on under the midnight stars.

 

The failures of sleep are sailing in them

And the lady ins their baskets full of dreams.

 

 

6. WHERE THE MIND IS WITHOUT FEAR

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken 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.

 

 

7. ENDLESS TIME

Time is endless in thy hands, my lord.

There is none to count thy minutes.

 

Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers.

Thou knowest how to wait.

 

  The centuries follow each other perfecting a small wide flower.

 

We have no time to lose,

And having no time we must scramble for a chance.

We are too poor to be late.

 

And thus it is that time goes by

While I give it to every querulous man who claims it,

And thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last.

 

At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut;

But I find that yet there is time.

 

 

8. FREEDOM

Freedom from fear is the freedom

I claim for you my motherland!

Freedom from the burden of the ages, bending your head,

Breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning call of the future.

Freedom from the shackles of slumber wherewith

You fasten yourself in night’s stillness,

Mistrusting the star that speaks of truth’s adventurous paths;

Freedom from the anarchy of destiny

Whole sails are weekly yielded to the blind uncertain winds,

And the helm to a hand ever rigid and cold as death.

Freedom from the insult of dwelling in a puppet’s world,

Where movements are started through brainless wires,

Repeated through mindless habits,

Where figures wait with patience and obedience for the

Master of the show,

To be stirred into a mimicry of life.

 

 

9. FREE LOVE

By all means they try to hold me secure

Who love me in this world.

But it is otherwise with thy love which is

Greater than theirs,

And thou keepest me free.

 

Lest I forget them they never venture to

Leave me alone.

But day passes by after day and thou

Art not seen.

 

If  I call not thee in my prayers, if I keep

Not thee in my heart,

Thy love for me still waits for my love.

 

 10. THE BOAT

I must launch out my boat.

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 gaze upon!

Do you not feel a thrill passing through the air

With the notes of the far-away song

Floating from the other shore?