Rabindranath Tagore's little book of poetry added a spiritual dimension to Western poetry.
Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, primarily for his prose translations of his book called Gitanjali, Bengali for “song offerings.”
The following is an excerpt, Gitanjali poem #7:
My song has put off her adornments. She has no pride of dress and decoration. Ornaments would mar our union. They would come between thee and me. Their jingling would drown thy whispers. My poet's vanity dies in shame before thy sight. O Master Poet, I have sat down at thy feet. Only let me make my life simple and straight like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music.
This poem demonstrates a humble charm: it is a prayer to open the poet’s heart to the Divine Beloved—“Master Poet”—without unneeded words and gestures. A vain poet produces ego-centered poetry, but this poet/devotee wants to be open to the simple humility of truth that only the Divine Beloved can offer his soul. As the Irish poet W. B. Yeats has said, these songs grow out of a culture in which art and religion are the same, so it is not surprising that we find our offerer of songs speaking to God in song after song, as is the case in #7. And the last line in song #7 is a subtle allusion to Bhagavan Krishna. According the great yogi/poet, Paramahansa Yogananda, "Krishna is shown in Hindu art with a flute; on it he plays the enrapturing song that recalls to their true home the human souls wandering in delusion."
Rabindranath Tagore, in addition to being an accomplished poet, essayist, playwright, and novelist, is also remembered as an educator, who founded Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan, West Bengal. Tagore exemplifies a Renaissance man, skilled in many fields of endeavor—including, of course, spiritual poetry.
For more about Tagore, please see my article Rabindranath Tagore.
