Tagore's Gitanjali

This poem shows the charm of humbleness: it is a prayer to help the poet open his heart to the Divine Beloved without extraneous words or gestures. A vain poet would produce vain poetry, so this poet wants to be open to the simple humility of truth that only the Divine Beloved can afford him. As Yeats says, these songs grow out of 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--or perhaps not so subtle--allusion to Bhagavan Krishna. According the 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 is then an excellent example of a Renaissance man, one skilled in many fields of endeavor. We can be grateful that one of those fields is philosophical poetry.

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