Critical Anylisis of the Selected Poems of Geetanjali by Rabindranath Tagore

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among us again.’”

Yeats and Ezra Pound cherished them at the outset like numerous others. Per Hallstrom, the part secretary of the Nobel panel opined, “It is certain, however, that no poet in English since the death of Goethe in 1832 can rival Tagore in noble humanity.” (Kripalani, 123)

Entering into the heart of Gitanjali we find: Thus it is that thy joy in me is so full. Thus it is that thou hast come down to me. O thou lord of all heavens, where would be thy love if I were not?

Gitanjali-56

It is a smooth, heart-touching tune we have heard incalculable times. In his acclaimed, "Religion of Man" the poet finishes up part 13, ’Spiritual Freedom’, with a tune of the Baul order of Bengal, which echoes the above ballad -

“It goes on blossoming for ages, the soul-lotus, in which I am bound, as well as thou, without escape. There is no end to the opening of its petals, and the honey in it has so much sweetness that thou, like an enchanted bee, canst never desert it, and therefore thou art bound, and I am, and ‘mukti’ is nowhere.” (Tagore, 165)

The "mukti" is an age old Indian thought, something like "Nirvana" of the Buddhist speech, which means arrival of the spirit always, to be converged with the divine pith, so one doesn’t return to this ordinary world once more. Be that as it may, Tagore wrote,

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path maker is breaking stones.

Gitanjali-11

So it is here that we need to see God and not to look for the past to converge with him. In ’Sanhita’, some portion of Vedas, it is said that God is ’Ushan’, ’Ashmayu’; restless and willing to come to me.

In a tune Tagore wrote that to meet him God has been seeking long. He understood,

Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.

Gitanjali-1 Inspite of all that he never wished to get himself only converged in God

Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight. My world will light its hundred different lamps with thy flame and place them before the alter of thy temple. No. I shall never shut the doors of my senses.

Gitanjali-73

The Veda tells of light. Tagore too has been rapturous with light: Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye kissing light, heart sweetening light!

Gitanjali-57

The four fundamental divinities of the Vedas: Agni, Indra, Surya and Soma have been revered by Tagore for the duration of his life, says Gouri Dharmapal, including,

“One way of knowing Rabindranath is Veda just as through Rabindranath we can know the Vedas. Vedas and Rabindranath are one and the same. One tells us in Vedic language, the other tells in Bangla; neither by reading, learning, translating nor by reciting but by realising.” (Gouri Dharmapal, 38)

Sometimes his cherished turns into the pith of God; God in human. Now and again the artist addresses the God as the Mother-

Mother, I shall weave a chain of pearls for thy neck with my tears of sorrow.

Gitanjali-83

Sometimes he calls him He –

He It is, the innermost one, who awakens my Being with his deep hidden touches.

Gitanjali-72

Sometimes God is his companion, now and again he is the Lord, ruler or father and here and there it is neuter. In some cases, the artist sits tight for him in bliss, now and again in instability.

I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice; only I have heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house. . .

Gitanjali-47

The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart. The blossom has not opened; only the wind is sighing by.

Gitanjali-13

When the waiting is long, he imagines his touch to be happy, but suddenly remembers that there was a time when he played with the God but could not discern him as such and now that the time is over, he finds that it is his playmate whom the world now worships.

When my play was with thee I never questioned who thou wert I knew nor shyness nor fear, my life was boisterous. Gitanjali-97

The poet was never ready to leave the world for the beyond but imagined many times the approaching last days of his life even when he was in his midlife which prompted him to write these poems,

WHEN I GO from hence let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable . . .

My whole body and my limbs have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch; and if the end comes here, let it come- let this be my parting word.

Gitanjali-96

The book ends with an appropriate poem ending with-"Like a flock of homesick cranes flying night and day back to their mountain nests let all my life take its voyage to its eternal home in one salutation to thee." Gitanjali-103

His yearning for the eternity was not the spiritual goal but his apprehension of death, a physical conclusion of life, usually. Due to the uniformity of thoughts and ideas, due to the selection and translation of his rhymed poems into prose poems, Gitanjali has acquired a unique feature among all his works.