Selected Poems

The poems of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) are among the most haunting and tender in Indian and in world literature, expressing a profound and passionate human yearning. His ceaselessly inventive works deal with such subjects as the interplay between God and the world, the eternal and transient, and with the paradox of an endlessly changing universe that is in tune with unchanging harmonies. Poems such as Earth’ and In the Eyes of a Peacock’ present a picture of natural processes unaffected by human concerns, while others, as in Recovery 14’, convey the poet’s bewilderment about his place in the world. And exuberant works such as New Rain’ and Grandfather’s Holiday’ describe Tagore’s sheer joy at the glories of nature or simply in watching a grandchild play.