"Please, make me the gardener of your flower garden", a lover asks his beloved. He calls himself a servant and his beloved the queen. He dreams to serve her idle days. He wants to keep fresh the grassy path where she walks in the morning; he wants her feet to be greeted with praise at every step by the flowers.

And what he wants for his reward? He asks to be allowed to hold her little fists like tender lotus-buds and slip flower chains over her wrists; to tinge the soles of her feet with the red juice of flower petals and kiss away the speck of dust that may chance to linger there.

This is the way Rabindranath Tagore, the greatest Indian poet of all times, introduce us to this enchanted collection of poems, poems that touch the most profound strings of our hearts. His poems tell us about love and life - and they are rich with the description of nature and beauty. Anybody that loves or has loved cannot remain indifferent to his poems. Some readers "have smiles, sweet and simple, and some a sly twinkle in their eyes. Some have tears that well up in the daylight, and others tears that are hidden in the gloom." But we all have need for him, the poet, who is "ever as young or as old as the youngest and the oldest of the village".

His poems tell us of impossible love - like the love of the free bird and the cage bird: "Their love is intense with longing, but they never can fly wing to wing. Through the bars of the cage they look, and vain is their wish to know each other. They flutter their wings in yearning, and sing, 'Come closer, my love!' The free bird cries, 'It cannot be, I fear the closed doors of the cage.' The cage bird whispers, 'Alas, my wings are powerless and dead.' "

His poems tell us of secret love: "The young traveler came along the road in the rosy mist of the morning. He stopped before my door and asked me with an eager cry, 'Where is she?' For very shame I could not say, 'She is I, young traveler, she is I.' "

His poems tell us of lovers' emotion: "When my love comes and sits by my side, when my body trembles and my eyelids droop, the night darkens, the wind blows out the lamp, and the clouds draw veils over the stars. It is the jewel at my own breast that shines and gives light. I do not know how to hide it."

His poems tell us of the need for love confidence: "Do not keep to yourself the secret of your heart, my friend! Say it to me, only to me, in secret. You who smile so gently, softly whisper, my heart will hear it, not my ears."

His poems tell us of a love story: "Hands cling to hands and eyes linger on eyes: thus begins the record of our hearts. It is the moonlit night of March; the sweet smell of henna is in the air; my flute lies on the earth neglected and your garland of flowers is unfinished. This love between you and me is simple as a song."

His poems tell us of lovers departing: "An unbelieving smile flits on your eyes when I come to you to take my leave. I have done it so often that you think I will soon return. To tell you the truth I have the same doubt in my mind. For the spring days come again time after time; the full moon takes leave and comes on another visit, the flowers come again and blush upon their branches year after year, and it is likely that I take my leave only to come to you again. But keep the illusion awhile; do not send it away with ungentle haste. When I say I leave you for all time, accept it as true, and let a mist of tears for one moment deepen the dark rim of your eyes. Then smile as archly as you like when I come again."

Reading those poems I felt like visiting a flower garden full of scents and beauty in a magic ancient kingdom.

I wish people would see that Tagore breaks the barrier of cultural appreciation. He is not only the most important Indian writer...he is one of the most important world writers. In Gitanjali, his simple lines of a lust for the unification of some divnity and him is unparalleld by anyone of anytime.

Before his, I had read only essays and a few poems by Tagore. So, I would have to say, this book brings you closer to Tagore, the story teller, though all his stories, plays and poems reflect this philosophic nature. Each story brings out the complexities in characters, who are not very different from us. Yet, it paints a very clear picture of pre-independence, late nineteenth and early twentieth century India.

A concise report of Tagore's life precedes what can be considered, altogether with Radice's, the most beautifully rendered translations of Tagore by someone else than himself. Don't let this book go neither... God: preserve the translator's life and competence as long as You did for the original author.

The king lives in a dark chamber. He is alienated from the people by the royal persons and other demagogues. He is strong, an immense source of power, but he is also lonely. He is used by the court for his power; whoever stands in their way of exploitation, they pit the king against him. They transform the villagers into nameless, passionless phantoms.

Then comes this girl to the city, looking for her love who is missing. She meets the king, and the king realizes his loneliness and longing. She is also a rebellion against the structures imposed by the powers to be. She awakens the humanity in the villagers by her trust, belief, tenderness.

Threatened, the demagogues scheme the lover into a fight against the king, and he is destroyed. Broken-hearted, she sacrifices herself with a call for rebellion. The king realizes how his destructive power has been manipulated by the demagogues, and joins the fight against himself.

This book was my first introduction to Tagore's works. The photography caught my attention enough to purchase the book. The poetry has touched me so much that I continue to read it over and over again.

Inheriting a famous family name means nothing unless the bearer of this burden strives to achieve things that are extra-ordinary. I salute & congratulate Saranindranath (Tagore) and the co-author Wendy Barker for taking up the immense challenge of translating Rabindranath's Final Poems. Authors successfully carry the sacred torch of translating Bengali Literature to reach out to the world body in the new millenium that was once ignited by Tagore himself. It is interesting to rediscover this "mystic" poet from India who once became the sensation of America. In 1912, the famous Chicago based "Poetry" magazine ran an issue on Tagore before his visit to the Americas. Tagore became the Poet's Poet and Writer's Writer of many literary protagonists of west such as W B Yeats, Robert Frost and Ezra Pound. It is all the more befitting to publish this book in a time when the world is discovering the great literary genre of Indian English through the works of Rushdie, Roy and Naipaul.

It is a bit unusual to have a 40-page preface (by Wendy Barker) and introduction (by Saranindranath) in poetry book that contains only 59 pages of poems. But after reading these prologues I am convinced that they were necessary. Particularly Saranindranath's lucid explanation of Rabindranath's complex religious philosophy is very interesting. Before his death, Tagore wrote the Final Poems from his sick bed during 1940 and 1941. Through these poems, we understand and feel the maturity of a great genius of all times who explored the human inquiry through thousands of songs & poems, hundreds of essays, short stories, numerous novels & paintings. The Final Poems are divided into three sections: Sickbed, Birthday and Last poems. Being a serious reader of world literature, I completely appreciate the difficulties the translators were subjected to. However one can still smell the aroma original rose in many simple verses such as...Words of emptiness rise, compassion-filled, a meaning beyond understanding...Please read the rest, you will be enlightened.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the outstanding Bengali poet, literateur and humanist (and Asia's first Nobel Laureate in 1913), is scarcely read outside his native Bengal because only a small fraction of his works have been translated from Bengali into English or indeed into other languages. English translations were those done by Tagore himself and by a few Bengali literary scholars well-versed in English. The arrival of Dr William Radice on the scene of Bengali scholarship in the early eighties brought in a current of fresh air. Here was an Englishman admiring Tagore and translating him! In this book, Radice applies his deep perception of Tagore in putting together a bouquet, as it were, redolent with the exotic fragrance of Tagoreana. No single collection can ever do justice to Tagore, and this one doesn't either. However, it does give the English-knowing reader a vivid glimpse of Tagore's amazing creativity. Radice has done a good job of choosing competent translators who have applied their hearts to the task -- Tagore is so subtle that it is enormously difficult to translate him! This book is strongly recommended for readers of all nationalities.

Kabir was born about 1440 (probably), and was a contemporary of the founder of the Sikh religion, Guru Nanak (possibly his mentor). A weaver by trade, and a mystic by nature, his spiritual vision accepted no division between Life and Creator, man and God, as evinced by the following excerpts; "I Laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty: You do not see that the Real is in your home, and you wander...listlessly! Here is the truth! Go where you will...if you do not find your soul, the world is unreal to you." and ..."Kabir says, God is the breath of all breath". Many of these songs contain criticism, not of "worldly" people who lived materialistically, but of renunciates who sought God outside of life and relationships; "The infinite dwelling of the Infinite Being is everywhere: in earth, water, sky, and air...He who is within is without; I see Him and none else". This translation by Tagore also contains allusions to Kabirs' cosmology and essential spiritual practice (absorbtion into the Divine Word or creative power) missing in the naturalistic and minimalistic interpretatations of Robert Bly. The poems, or songs, themselves are remarkably fresh, as if they contained the living inspiration which gave them form, and remain, as it were, untouched by time.

"there, in the clouds of the sravon sky / I have laid my tear-washed eyes./ awake are they, blinkless, all night / gazing beyond the horizon of separate/ staring for the one who has gone beyond sight / dreaming of the mass of her hair/ that is flying with the gust of the east wind / in the green tamal wood/ on the pathway along which she departed / at the setting twilit hous./ pain is entwined in its grass/ trembling with the breath of its blades./ that backward looks of hers/

over and over again/ cling on to its shadows/

Songs of Tagore Mohammad Anisur Rahman

This book has emerged from the author's attempts to translate songs of Rabindranath Tagore for non-Bengali listeners and members of singing groups that the author has directed, and for participants in international seminars and workshop where songs have been exchanged as a cultural dialogue between nationalities in-between nationalities in-between intellectual exchanges. An introductory chapter of the book narrates the story of the author's 'personal journey' with his translations. Thereafter the author discusses the place of song in Tagore's philosophy, as a pathway and communication as the poet saw it between the human and the Divine. The book contains translations of some 66 songs of Tagore under major themes.

The book also presents a selection of paintings of a group of artists who have joined in a companion project to do paintings on songs of their choice from those presented in this book

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore was born in 1961 into one of the foremost families of Bangal at Jorasanko in Calcutta. His ceaselessly innovations in poetry, prose, drama and musics made him indisputably the greatest poet of Bengal. His works run to 29 large volumes. He wrote over 2000 songs, which have become the national music of bengal and include the national anthems of both Bangladesh & India. Late in life he took up painting, exhibiting in Moscow, Berlin, Paris, London and New Youk. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He created the school and international University of 'Visva Bharati' at Shantiniketan.