I have been reading a lot recently about a man called Rabindranath Tagore, who lived in India at the turn of last century. The thing that really intrigues me about him is the incredible diversity of his gifts, and even more, that he developed these talents and interests, leaving behind a body of amazing works for others to be inspired by. He has been described as the greatest writer in modern Indian literature as a poet, novelist and playwright, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. But as well as this, he was also a visual artist, composer, philosopher and educator. His writing is so beautiful. Here is part of one poem he wrote called The First Jasmines that I love. It’s so romantic, and the images create such beauty:

AH, these jasmines, these white jasmines!

I seem to remember the first day I filled my hands

with these jasmines, these white jasmines.

I have loved the sunlight, the sky and the green earth;

I have heard the liquid murmur of the river

through the darkness of midnight;

autumn sunsets have come to me at the bend of the road

in the lonely waste, like a bride raising her veil

to accept her lover.

Yet my memory is still sweet with the first white jasmines

that I held in my hands when I was a child …

 

~ by Birgit on January 5, 2008.

Posted in Literature