Rabindranath Tagore – The Gardener 61

Peace, my heart, let the time for

the parting be sweet.

Let it not be a death but completeness.

Let love melt into memory and pain

into songs.

Let the flight through the sky end

in the folding of the wings over the

nest.

Let the last touch of your hands be

gentle like the flower of the night.

Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a

moment, and say your last words in

silence.

I bow to you and hold up my lamp

to light you on your way.

Rabindranath Tagore – The Gardener 64

I spent my day on the scorching

hot dust of the road.

Now, in the cool of the evening,

I knock at the door of the inn.

It is deserted and in ruins.

A grim ashath tree spreads its

hungry clutching roots through the

gaping fissures of the walls.

Days have been when wayfarers

came here to wash their weary feet.

They spread their mats in the

courtyard in the dim light of the

early moon, and sat and talked of

strange lands.

They woke refreshed in the morning

when birds made them glad, and

friendly flowers nodded their heads

at them from the wayside.

But no lighted lamp awaited me

when I came here.

The black smudges of smoke left by

many a forgotten evening lamp stare,

like blind eyes, from the wall.

Fireflies flit in the bush near the

dried-up pond, and bamboo branches

fling their shadows on the grass-

grown path.

I am the guest of no one at the end

of my day.

The long night is before me, and I

am tired.

Rabindranath Tagore – The Gardener 69

I hunt for the golden stag.

You may smile, my friends, but I

pursue the vision that eludes me.

I run across hills and dales, I wander

through nameless lands, because I am

hunting for the golden stag.

You come and buy in the market

and go back to your homes laden with

goods, but the spell of the homeless

winds has touched me I know not when

and where.

I have no care in my heart; all my

belongings I have left far behind me.

I run across hills and dales, I wander

through nameless lands--because I am

hunting for the golden stag.

Rabindranath Tagore – The Gardener 68

None lives for ever, brother, and

nothing lasts for long. Keep that in

mind and rejoice.

Our life is not the one old burden,

our path is not the one long

journey.

One sole poet has not to sing one

aged song.

The flower fades and dies; but he

who wears the flower has not to

mourn for it for ever.

Brother, keep that in mind and

rejoice.

There must come a full pause to

weave perfection into music.

Life droops toward its sunset to be

drowned in the golden shadows.

Love must be called from its play

to drink sorrow and be borne to the

heaven of tears.

Brother, keep that in min and

rejoice.

We hasten to gather our flowers lest

they are plundered by the passing

winds.

It quickens our blood and brightens

our eyes to snatch kisses that would

vanish if we delayed.

Our life is eager, our desires are keen,

for time tolls the bell of parting.

Brother, keep that in mind and

rejoice.

There is not time for us to clasp a

thing and crush it and fling it away to

the dust.

The hours trip rapidly away, hiding

their dreams in their skirts.

Our life is short; it yields but a

few days for love.

Were it for work and drudgery it

would be endlessly long.

Brother, keep that in mind and

rejoice.

Beauty is sweet to us, because she

dances to the same fleeting tune with

our lives.

Knowledge is precious to us, because

we shall never have time to

complete it.

All is done and finished in the eternal

Heaven.

But earth's flowers of illusion are

kept eternally fresh by death.

Brother, keep that in mind and

rejoice.

Rabindranath Tagore – The Gardener 79

I often wonder where lie hidden

the boundaries of recognition between

man and the beast whose heart knows

no spoken language.

Through what primal paradise in a

remote morning of creation ran the

simple path by which their hearts

visited each other.

Those marks of their constant tread

have not been effaced though their

kinship has been long forgotten.

Yet suddenly in some wordless

music the dim memory wakes up

and the beast gazes into the man's

face with a tender trust, and the

man looks down into its eyes with

amused affection.

It seems that the two friends meet

masked, and vaguely know each other

through the disguise.