Poems List

Defamation

Defamation


Whey are those tears in your eyes, my child?

How horrid of them to be always scolding you for nothing!

You have stained your fingers and face with ink while writingis
that why they call you dirty?

O, fie! Would they dare to call the full moon dirty because
it has smudged its face with ink?

For every little trifle they blame you, my child. They are
ready to find fault for nothing.

You tore your clothes while playing-is that why they call you
untidy?

O, fie! What would they call an autumn morning that smiles
through its ragged clouds?

Take no heed of what they say to you, my child.

They make a long list of your misdeeds.

Everybody knows how you love sweet things-is that why they
call you greedy?

O, fie! What then would they call us who love you?
580

Broken Song

Broken Song

Kasinath the new young singer fills the hall with sound:
The seven notes dance in his throat like seven tame birds.
His voice is a sharp sword slicing and thrusting everywhere,
It darts like lightening - no knowing where it will go when.
He sets deadly traps for himself, then cuts them away:
The courtiers listen in amazement, give frequent gasps of praise.
Only the old king Pratap Ray sits like wood, unmoved.
Haraj Lal is the only singer he likes, all others leave him cold.
From childhood he has spent so long listening to him sing -
Rag Kafi during holi, cloud-songs during the rains,
Songs for Durga at dawn in autumn, songs to bid her farewell -
His heart swelled when he heard them and his eyes swam with tears.
And on days when friends gathered and filled the hall
There were cowherds' songs of Krsna, in raags Bhupali and Multan.


So many nights of wedding-festivity have passed in that royal house:
Servants dressed in red, hundreds of lamps alight:
The bridegroom sitting shyly in his finery and jewels,
Young friends teasing him and whispering in his ear:
Before him, singing raag Sahana, sits Baraj Lal.
The king's heart is full of all those days and songs.
When he hears some other singer, he feels no chord inside,
No sudden magical awakening of memories of the past.
When Pratap Ray watches Kasinath he just sees his wagging head:
Tune after tune after tune, bu none with any echo in the heart.


Kasinath asks for a rest and the singing stops for a space.
Pratap Ray smilingly turns his eyes to Baraj Lal.
He puts his mouth to his ear and says, 'Dear ustad,
Give us a song as songs ought to be, this is no song at all.
It's all tricks and games, like a cat hunting a bird.
We used to hear songs in the old days, today they have no idea.'


Old Baraj Lal, white-haired, white turban on his head,
Bows to the assembled courtiers and slowly takes his seat.
He takes the tanpura in his wasted, heavily veined hand
And with lowered head and closed eyes begins raag Yaman-kalyap.
His quavering voice is swallowed by the enormous hall,
Is like a tiny bird in a storm, unable to fly for all it tries.
Pratap Ray, sitting to the left, encourages him again and again:
'Superb, bravo!' he says in his ear, 'sing out loud.'


The courtiers are inattentive, some whisper amongst themselves,
Some of them yawn, some doze, some go off to their rooms;
Some of them call to servants, 'Bring the bookah, bring some pan.'
Some fan themselves furiously and complain of the heat.
They cannot keep still for a minute, they shuffle or walk about -
The hall was quiet before, but every sort of noise has grown.
The old man's singing is swamped, like a frail boat in a typhoon:
Only his shaky fingering of the tanpura shows it is there.


Music that should rise on its own joy from the depths of the heart



Is crushed by heedless clamour, like a fountain under a stone.
The song and Baraj Lal's feelings go separate ways,
But he sings for all he is worth, to keep up the honour of his king.


One of the verses of the song has somehow slipped from his mind.
He quickly goes back, tries to get it right this time.
Again he forgets, it is lost, he shakes his head at the shame;
He starts the song at the beginning - again he has to stop.
His hand trembles doubly as he prays to his teachers name.
His voice quakes with distress, like a lamp guttering in a breeze.
He abandons the words of the song and tries to salvage the tune,
But suddenly his wide-mouthed singing breaks into loud cries.
The intricate melody goes to the winds, the rhythm is swept away -
Tears snap the thread of the song, cascade like pearls.
In shame he rests his head on the old tanpura in his lap -
He has failed to remember a song: he weeps as he did as a child.
With brimming eyes king Pratap Ray tenderly touches his friend:
'Come, let us go from here,' he says with kindness and love.
They leave that festive hall with its hundreds of blinding lights.
The two old friends go outside, holding each other's hands.


Baraj says with hands clasped, 'Master, our days are gone.
New men have come now, new styles and customs in the world.
The court we kept is deserted - only the two of us are left.
Don't ask anyone to listen to me now, I beg you at your feet, my lord.
The singer along does not make a song, there has to be someone who hears:
One man opens his throat to sing, the other sings in his mind.
Only when waves fall on the shore do they make a harmonious sound;
Only when breezes shake the woods do we hear a rustling in the leaves.
Only from a marriage of two forces does music arise in the world.
Where there is no love, where listeners are dumb, there never can be song.'
607

Closed Path

Closed Path

I thought that my voyage had come to its end
at the last limit of my power,---that the path before me was closed,
that provisions were exhausted
and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.


But I find that thy will knows no end in me.
And when old words die out on the tongue,
new melodies break forth from the heart;
and where the old tracks are lost,
new country is revealed with its wonders.
603

Beggarly Heart

Beggarly Heart

When the heart is hard and parched up,
come upon me with a shower of mercy.

When grace is lost from life,
come with a burst of song.

When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from
beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.

When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner,
break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.

When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one,
thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder
528

Brahmā, Vişņu, Śiva

Brahmā, Vişņu, Śiva

I THE DARK

In a worldless timeless lightless great emptiness
Four-faced Brahma broods.


nasad asin, no sad asit tadanim;
nasid raja no vioma paro yat.
kim avarivah? kuha? kasya sarmann?
Ambhah kim asid, gahanam gabhiram?


na mytur asid, amrtam na tarhi.
na ratria ahna asit pratekh.
anid avatam svadhaya tad ekam.
tasmad dhanyan na parah kim canasa.


tama asit tamasa gudham agre;
apraketam salilam sarvam a idam.
tuchyenabhu apihitam yad asit,
tapasas tan mahinajayataikam.


Of a sudden sea of joy surges through his heart –
The ur-god opens his eyes.
Speech from four mouths
Speeds from each quarter.
Through infinite dark,
Through limitless sky,
Like a growing sea-storm,
Like hope never sated,
His Word starts to move.


Stirred by joy his breathing quickens,
His eight eyes quiver with flame.
His fire-matted hair sweeps the horizon,
Bright as a million suns.


From the towering source of the world
In a thousand streams
Cascades the primeval blazing fountain,
Fragmenting silence,
Splitting its stone heart.


kamas tad agre sam avartatadhi
manaso retah prathamam yad asit?
sato bandhum asati nir avindan
hrdi pratisya kavayo manisa


II THE MUSIC


In a universe rampant
With new life exhalant,
With new life exultant,
Vishnu spreads wide



His four-handed blessing.
He raises his conch
And all things quake
At its booming sound.
The frenzy dies down,
The furnace expires,
The planets douse
Their flames with tears,
The world’s Divine Poet
Constructs its history,
From wild cosmic song
Its epic is formed.
Stars in their orbits,
Moon sun and planets –
He binds with his mace
All things to Law,
Imposes the discipline
Of metre and rhyme.


In the Manasa depths
Vishnu watches -
Beauties arise
From the light of lotuses.
Lakshmi strews smiles -
Clouds show a rainbow,
Gardens show flowers.
The roar of Creation
Resolves into music.
Softness hides rigour,
Forms cover power.


tirascino vitato rasmir esam:
adhah svid asid, upari svid asit?
retodha asan, mahimana asan;
svadha avasat, prayatih parastat.


Age after age after age is slave to a mighty rhythm –
At last the world-frame
Tires in its body,
Sleep in its eyes
Slackens its structure,
Diffuses its energy.
From the heart of all matter
Comes the anguished cry –
‘Wake, wake, great Shiva,
Our body grows weary
Of its law-fixed path,
Give us new form.
Sing our destruction,
That we gain new life.’


III THE FIRE



The great god awakes,
His three eyes open,
He surveys all horizons.
He lifts his bow, his fell pinaka,
He pounds the world with his tread.
From first things to last it trembles and shakes
And shudders.
The bonds of nature are ripped.
The sky is rocked by the roar
Of a wave of ecstatic release.
An inferno soars –
The pyre of the universe.


Shattered sun and moon, smashed stars and planets,
Rain down from all angles,
A blackness of all particles
To be swallowed by flame,
Absorbed in an instant.
At the start of Creation
There was a dark without origin,
At the breaking of Creation
There is fire without end
In an all-pervading sky-engulfing sea of burning
Shiva shuts his three eyes.
He begins his great trance.


ko adha veda? Ka iha pravocat,
kuta ajata, kuta iyam visrstih?
arvag deva asya visajanena:
atha ko veda yata ababhuva?


iyam visrstir yata ababhuva;
yadi vasa dadhe yadi van na:
yo asyadhyaksah parame vioman
so anga veda, yadi va na veda.
20

At The Last Watch

At The Last Watch

Pity, in place of love,
That pettiest of gifts,
Is but a sugar-coating over neglect.
Any passerby can make a gift of it
To a street beggar,
Only to forget the moment the first corner is turned.
I had not hoped for anything more that day.


You left during the last watch of night.
I had hoped you would say goodbye,
Just say 'Adieu' before going away,
What you had said another day,
What I shall never hear again.
In their place, just that one word,
Bound by the thin fabric of a little compassion
Would even that have been too much for you to bear?


When I first awoke from sleep
My heart fluttered with fear
Lest the time had been over.
I rushed out of bed.
The distant church clock chimed half past twelve
I sat waiting near the door of my room
Resting my head against it,
Facing the porch through which you would come out.


Even that tiniest of chances
Was snatched away by fate from hapless me;
I fell asleep
Shortly before you left.
Perhaps you cast a sidelong glance
At my reclining body
Like a broken boat left high and dry.
Perhaps you walked away with care
Lest you wake me up.
Awaking with a start I knew at once
That my vigil had been wasted
I realised, what was to go went away in a moment,
What was to stay behind stayed on
For all time.


Silence everywhere
Like that of a birds' nest bereft of birds
On the bough of a songless tree.
With the lifeless light of the waning moon was now blended
The pallor of dawn
Spreading itself over the greyness of my empty life.
I walked towards your bedroom
For no reason.
Outside the door
Burnt a smoky lantern covered with soot,
The porch smelt of the smouldering wick.



Over the abandoned bed the flaps of the rolled-up mosquito-net
Fluttered a little in the breeze.
Seen in the sky outside through the window
Was the morning star,
Witness of all sleepless people
Bereft of hope.


Suddenly I found you had left behind by mistake
Your gold-mounted ivory walking stick.
If there were time, I thought,
You might come back from the station to look for it,
But not because
You had not seen me before going away.
648

Baby's Way

Baby's Way

If baby only wanted to, he could fly up to heaven this moment.

It is not for nothing that he does not leave us.

He loves to rest his head on mother's bosom, and cannot ever
bear to lose sight of her.

Baby know all manner of wise words, though few on earth can
understand their meaning.

It is not for nothing that he never wants to speak.

The one thing he wants is to learn mother's words from
mother's lips. That is why he looks so innocent.

Baby had a heap of gold and pearls, yet he came like a beggar
on to this earth.

It is not for nothing he came in such a disguise.

This dear little naked mendicant pretends to be utterly
helpless, so that he may beg for mother's wealth of love.

Baby was so free from every tie in the land of the tiny
crescent moon.

It was not for nothing he gave up his freedom.

He knows that there is room for endless joy in mother's little
corner of a heart, and it is sweeter far than liberty to be caught
and pressed in her dear arms.

Baby never knew how to cry. He dwelt in the land of perfect
bliss.

It is not for nothing he has chosen to shed tears.

Though with the smile of his dear face he draws mother's
yearning heart to him, yet his little cries over tiny troubles
weave the double bond of pity and love.
626

A Moments Indulgence

A Moments Indulgence

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
dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.
556

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Identification and basic context

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, writer, composer, playwright, philosopher, and painter. He is celebrated as the most significant literary figure of modern India. Born into a prominent Bengali Hindu family deeply involved in the Indian Renaissance, he inherited a rich cultural and intellectual legacy. His nationality was Indian, and he wrote primarily in Bengali, though many of his works were translated into English by himself and others. Tagore lived during a period of intense nationalistic fervor and social change in British India, contributing significantly to the intellectual and artistic landscape of his time.

Childhood and education

Tagore's childhood was privileged, growing up in a large, cultured family in Calcutta. His father, Debendranath Tagore, was a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, a monotheistic reformist movement. Rabindranath received a home-based education, with tutors instructing him in literature, music, and languages. He briefly attended a local school but found the formal system stifling. His education was largely shaped by his immersion in Bengali literature, Sanskrit classics, and his father's spiritual teachings. He began composing poetry at a young age, showing an early aptitude for creative expression. His youthful experiences instilled in him a deep appreciation for nature and a critical perspective on rigid social structures.

Literary trajectory

Tagore's literary career began in his youth with the publication of his first collection of poems, 'Sandhya Sangeet' (Evening Songs), in 1875. He gained significant recognition with his lyrical work 'Gitanjali' (Song Offerings), the English translation of which earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. This marked a turning point in his career, bringing him international acclaim. He was incredibly prolific, producing a vast body of work that included novels like 'Gora' (1910) and 'Ghare-Baire' (The Home and the World, 1916), short stories such as those collected in 'Galpaguchchha' (A Collection of Stories), and numerous dramas, essays, and thousands of songs. He also founded Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, an institution dedicated to the synthesis of Eastern and Western cultures and a nurturing ground for creative arts.

Works, style, and literary characteristics

Tagore's major works are too numerous to list comprehensively, but include 'Gitanjali', 'Gora', 'Chokher Bali', 'Kabuliwala', and the Rabindra Sangeet (songs composed by him). His dominant themes are profound and diverse: the beauty and spiritual significance of nature, the complexities of human love and relationships, the joys and sorrows of life, nationalism and internationalism, social justice, and the spiritual quest for truth. His style is characterized by its lyrical beauty, musicality, and profound emotional depth. He mastered various forms, from intricate metrical verse to free verse, and his songs are known for their exquisite blend of poetry and music. His poetic voice is often tender, introspective, and philosophical, embracing both the personal and the universal. His language is rich, evocative, and infused with imagery drawn from nature and human experience. Tagore's work is deeply rooted in Bengali culture but possesses a universal resonance.

Cultural and historical context

Tagore was a product of and a significant contributor to the Bengal Renaissance, a period of artistic and intellectual awakening in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He lived through the era of British colonial rule in India and was a vocal critic of its oppressive aspects, yet he also advocated for a synthesis of Indian and Western values, rather than outright rejection of the West. He was associated with intellectuals and artists of his time, both in India and internationally, and his founding of Visva-Bharati University aimed to foster cross-cultural understanding. His work reflects the tensions and aspirations of a nation grappling with identity, tradition, and modernity.

Personal life

Tagore's personal life was marked by deep familial ties and personal losses that often found expression in his work. He married Mrinalini Devi in 1883, and they had two surviving children. His wife's death in 1902 was a profound grief that influenced his poetry. He maintained close relationships with his children, particularly his son Rathindranath, who helped him in establishing Visva-Bharati. His spiritual inclinations were shaped by his father and the Brahmo Samaj, but he developed his own unique philosophy emphasizing the divine in humanity and nature. His later years were dedicated to his university and his literary pursuits.

Recognition and reception

Tagore achieved unparalleled recognition during his lifetime, most notably with the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for 'Gitanjali'. This award brought him immense international fame and established him as a global literary figure. He was celebrated in India as a national poet and cultural icon. His works have been translated into numerous languages, and he received honorary doctorates from various universities worldwide. While his literary genius was widely acknowledged, his philosophical and social ideas also garnered considerable attention and sometimes debate.

Influences and legacy

Tagore was influenced by ancient Indian scriptures (Upanishads), classical Sanskrit literature, and the devotional poetry of the Bhakti movement. He was also open to Western influences, particularly Romantic poetry and the ideas of thinkers like Emerson. His legacy is immense and multifaceted. He is credited with modernizing Bengali literature and art. His songs (Rabindra Sangeet) remain an integral part of Bengali culture. His philosophy of education, humanism, and internationalism continues to be influential. He inspired numerous artists, writers, and thinkers across India and the world.

Interpretation and critical analysis

Tagore's work is often praised for its lyrical beauty, spiritual depth, and humanistic outlook. Critics have explored his engagement with themes of nationalism versus cosmopolitanism, the sacredness of nature, and the complexities of human experience. His writings are seen as a bridge between the East and the West, offering universal insights into the human condition. While celebrated, some interpretations have also focused on the potential for his universalism to sometimes abstract or overlook specific socio-political realities.

Curiosities and lesser-known aspects

Tagore was also an accomplished painter, beginning his artistic career in his late sixties, producing a distinctive body of work characterized by its surreal and expressive quality. He was known for his long, flowing beard and simple attire, which contributed to his iconic image. He had a deep connection with nature, often finding inspiration in his surroundings at Santiniketan. He was a prolific letter-writer, maintaining correspondence with prominent figures globally.

Death and memory

Rabindranath Tagore died on August 7, 1941, at the age of 80, in his ancestral home in Jorasanko, Calcutta. His death was a profound loss for India and the world. His memory is kept alive through his vast literary and artistic legacy, the continued performance and study of his songs, and the enduring influence of his philosophical and educational ideals. Visva-Bharati University remains a living testament to his vision.