Puutarhuri: Suorasanaisia Runoelmia
Rabindranath Tagore wrote these poems in the early decades of the twentieth century, when he was reshaping not just Bengali literature but the very way the world understood what poetry could do. In "The Gardener," the garden is never merely a garden: it is the terrain of the human heart, where longing takes root and blooms without permission. Tagore speaks in voices that are simultaneously ancient and startlingly modern, sometimes the lover, sometimes the beloved, sometimes the silent witness to both. The collection moves through love's full spectrum, from the electric first touch of desire to the bone-deep ache of separation, always returning to the natural world as a mirror and a balm. What distinguishes these poems from mere sentimentality is Tagore's philosophical stillness, his ability to hold joy and sorrow in the same breath without resolving either into something tame. These are poems to read in a single sitting, then return to over years, as one might return to a garden season after season, finding it somehow both familiar and astonishingly new.
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“My heart, the bird of the wilderness,has found its sky in your eyes.They are the cradle of the morning,they are the kingdom of the stars.My songs are lost in their depths.Let me but soar in that sky,in its lonely immensity.Let me but cleave its cloudsand spread wings in its sunshine.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“Dreams can never be made captive.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“Who are you, reader, reading my poems a hundred years hence?I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.Open your doors and look abroad.From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before.In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred years.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“From my heart comes out and dances the image of my own desire. The gleaming vision flits on. I try to clasp it firmly, it eludes me and leads me astray. I seek what I cannot get, I get what I do not seek.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“Why did the flower fade? I pressed it to my heart with anxious love, that is why the flower faded.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“When you have finished with others, that is my time.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“I run as a musk-deer runs in the shadow of the forest mad with his own perfume.The night is the night of mid-May, the breeze is the breeze of the south.I lose my way and I wander, I seek what I cannot get, I get what I do not seek.From my heart comes out and dances the image of my own desire. The gleaming vision flits on.I try to clasp it firmly, it eludes me and leads me astray. I seek what I cannot get, I get what I do not seek.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“Your lips are bitter-sweet with the taste of my wine of pain.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
“The Gardener: 41"I long to speak the deepest words I have to say to you; but Idare not, for fear you should laugh.That is why I laugh at myself and shatter my secret in jest.I make light of my pain, afraid you should do so.I long to tell you the truest words I have to say to you; but Idare not, being afraid that you would not believe them.That is why I disguise them in untruth, saying the contrary ofwhat I mean.I make my pain appear absurd, afraid that you should do so.I long to use the most precious words I have for you; but I darenot, fearing I should not be paid with like value.That is why I gave you hard names and boast of my callousstrength.I hurt you, for fear you should never know any pain.I long to sit silent by you; but I dare not lest my heart comeout at my lips.That is why I prattle and chatter lightly and hide my heartbehind words.I rudely handle my pain, for fear you should do so.I long to go away from your side; but I dare not, for fear mycowardice should become known to you.That is why I hold my head high and carelessly come into yourpresence.Constant thrusts from your eyes keep my pain fresh for ever.””
— Rabindranath Tagore
