Poems of Rabindranath Tagore

love remains a secret even when spoken
for only lovers
truly know when they are loved

history slowly smothers its truth
but hastily struggles to revive it
in the terrible penance of pain

my work is rewarded in daily wages
I wait for my final value in love

beauty knows to say “enough!”
barbarism clamours for still more

God loves to see in me not his servant
but himself who serves all

the darkness of night
is in harmony with day;
the morning of mist
is made up of discord;
in the bounteous time of roses
love is wine; it is food
in the famished hour
when petals are shed

an unknown flower in a strange land
speaks to the poet:
“are we not of the same soil my lover?”

I am able to love
because I have the freedom to deny it

my untuned strings beg for music
in their anguished cry of shame;
the worm thinks it strange & foolish
that we do not eat our books

Rabindranath Tagore (1928)