Introduction

'Gitanjali' means 'song offerings' in Bengali. In 1912, on the voyage to England, Tagore translated some of his Bengali devotional lyrics into English prose poems, one hundred and three in all; published in London with an introduction by Yeats, they won him the Nobel Prize the following year. Yeats wrote that reading the manuscript stirred him so deeply that he often dared not read it on a train, for fear of being seen moved. In a voice humble, ardent and intimate the poet speaks to God, who is both lord of the universe and the poet's friend and lover, revealed everywhere in nature, in labour and in ordinary life. Stray Birds is a collection of more than three hundred short poems Tagore wrote in English, some only a line or two, like drops of morning dew, full of wisdom and childlike wonder: 'The world has kissed my soul with its pain, asking for its return in songs.' 'Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death like autumn leaves.' This volume contains both collections.