itanjali or the «Song Offerings» is an English translation of 103 selected poems from Tagore’s several Bengali books of poetry. It was largely the Gitanjali poems that took the Western world by storm and brought him worldwide recognition. It is also poetry of life affirmation: life with its colour and abundance, melancholy and mystery, despondency and joy of fulfilment. The poems are a record of the poet’s intimate response to the beauty and
splendour of the universe.

Gitanjali is part of the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works.

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!
Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner
of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and
see thy God is not before thee!

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and
where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with
them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered
with dust. Put off thy holy mantle and even like him
come down on the dusty soil!

Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found?
Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the
bonds of creation; he is bound with us all for ever.

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers
and incense! What harm is there if thy clothes become
tattered and stained? Meet him and stand by him in
toil and in sweat of thy brow.