From Gitanjali

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms toward 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.



From The Fugitive

Give me the supreme courage of love, this is my prayer -- the courage to speak, to do, to suffer at
thy will, to leave all things or be left alone. Strengthen me on errands of danger, honor me with
pain, and help me climb to that  difficult mood which sacrifices daily to thee.

Give me the supreme confidence of love, this is my prayer -- the confidence that belongs to life in
death, to victory in defeat, to the power hidden in frailest beauty, to that dignity in pain which
accepts hurt but disdains to return it.




From Lover's Gift

Come to my garden walk, my love. Pass by the fervid flowers that press themselves on your sight.
Pass them by, stopping at some chance joy, which like a sudden wonder of sunset illumines, yet
eludes.
For love's gift is shy, it never tells its name, it flits across the shade, spreading a shiver of joy along
the dust.
Overtake it or miss it for ever. But a gift that can be grasped is merely a frail flower, or a lamp with a
flame that will flicker.




Other Poems

Be not ashamed, my brothers, to stand
before the proud and the powerful
with your white robes of simpleness.
Let your crown be of humility, your
freedom the freedom of the soul.
Build god's throne daily upon the ample
bareness of your poverty, and know
that what is huge is not great and
pride is not everlasting.




There lies the ocean of peace,
Helmsman, launch the boat.
You will always be his comrade.
Take, O take him to your heart.
In the path of the Infinite
will shine the Dhruva-tara.
Giver of freedom, your forgiveness, your mercy
will be wealth inexhaustible
in the eternal journey.
May the mortal bonds perish,
May the vast universe take him in its arms,
And may he know in his fearless heart
The great unknown.




Let the earth and the water, the air and
the fruits of my country be sweet,
my God.
Let the homes and marts, the forests
and fields of my country be full,
my God.
Let the promises and hopes, the deeds
and words of my country be true,
my God.
Let the lives and hearts of the sons and
daughters of my country be one,
my God.




Rabindranath Tagore