#gitanjali

I take pride in this great wall, and I plaster it with dust and sand lest a least hole should be left in this name; and for all the care I take I lose sight of my true being.

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches it’s arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”

-Poem #35, Gitanjali

This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.

Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.

Gitanjali 35

BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;   Where knowledge is free;   Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;   Where words come out from the depth of truth;   Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;   Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;   Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action   Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.