"Stray Birds" contains ideas on nature, man, and his environment as may be entertained by a man sitting by a window where the stray birds of summer sing and fly away. These short, sometimes merely one-line poems are often just an image or the distillation of a thought, but they stay in the mind and do not fly away as easily as the birds. The author, Rabindranath Tagore, was a Nobel laureate for literature (1913) as well as one of India's greatest poets and the composer of independent India's national anthem, as well as that of Bangladesh. He wrote successfully in all literary genres, but was first and foremost a poet, publishing more than 50 volumes of poetry. He was a Bengali writer who was born in Calcutta and later traveled around the world. He was knighted in 1915, but gave up his knighthood after the massacre of demonstrators in India in 1919.
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 "because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West."
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla.
What is it about Tagore's poems that captures the reader? His poems are so easy to read. The subjects are highly familiar; the elements commonplace. They are not highly personal; they won't stump you with symbolism that requires decoding or deciphering. In fact, a child could easily follow some of the lines. The poems are so simple you could go through the whole book in an hour.
And this, perhaps, is Tagore's secret: simplicity. But it is a simplicity that ensnares. Because simple though the poems are they resonate with wisdom. Their impact and moral are just extraordinary. Nature abounds in almost all the poems - flowers, birds, light, dust, raindrops - and Tagore used them in such a way that they become more than themselves. In his world the insignificant and mundane have more color and depth.
The very simplicity of each poem is quite effective. It made me pause and read slowly, to think each passage carefully. In the process, I found myself inspired, enlightened, even humbled - and wanting to read more. Reading just the first few pages of this collection, I could easily feel that Tagore had seen a lot of life. For how could someone find the smallest of things deserving to magnify the infinite and what we consider absolute?
Just look at these poems.
"They throw their shadows before them who carry their lantern on their back." 18
"Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it." 56
"The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of its tail." 58
"We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us." 75
"He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gate open." 83
"The roots below the earth claim no rewards for making the branches fruitful." 138
"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it." 197
"That love can ever lose is a fact that we cannot accept as truth." 316
I don't really know how to review poems Because I am always in the confusion about deciphering or unearthing the real meaning behind them. Whenever I read poems by great poets like Rabindranath Tagore, I feel inadequate with my life for not tasting the simple beauty of life woven in a single sentence. This book takes time to finish Because each line is a reservoir of the unlocked beauty of the universe. Every word in the poem could make you feel the surge of nameless or wordless emotions in your flickering hearts.
probably one of the best poetry works I have read so far in recent years. Maybe my words or writing skills are lacking enough strength to give life to all the experience I had while reading this work. Probably read it and savor it, suffer the inadequacy to write down everything you feel just like me.
"In the moon, thou sendest thy love letter to me" said the night to the sun "I leave my answers in tears upon the grass." More such thoughts, observations lay within this book. Grab it. Read it. It's worth it.
Whenever I read a book by Rabindranath Tagore, I read each sentence at least two times to decipher the depth of the thoughts concealed in his words.
Stray Birds is a collection of some 300 one to two lines poem. The 1 or 2 lines poems has so much profundity that I read some of them at least 5 times. After reading each poem, I kept thinking about them. That made me read this book for many days.I used to read 25-30 poems each day to savor the words of the poems in my heart. This book is one of the finest piece of literature.
I am listing some of the sentences of this book that enthralled me.
1. In the moon, thou sendest thy love letter to me" said the night to the sun "I leave my answers in tears upon the grass."
2.A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the heart bleed that uses it.
3. This sadness of my soul is her bride's veil. It waits to be lifted in the night.
4. The night's flower was late when morning kissed her. She shivered and sighed and dropped to the ground.
5. Let my thoughts come to you when I am gone, like the afterglow of sunset at the margin of starry silence.
Recommended to everyone who loves poetry and meaningful classic literature.
"If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars." "I have lost my dewdrop", cries the flower to the morning sky that lost all its stars." "A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it."
Tagore is profoundly phenomenal and a genius with his ideas. His words have the ability to scrape off your soul from you! His epigrams leave you astounded and provoke you to think. He'll always be among my favorite poets. Metaphors fail to express the beauty of Tagore's enticing mind. Poetry at its finest. A must read indeed.
It is the most mesmerizing poetry I have ever read and no I am not just saying this because it captured my imagination. I am saying this because it sent me to a new realm of imagination. The way it has been written, makes you feel what the poet would have felt while writing this piece of literature and also how he saw the nature with his soul. The greatest touch point from where I can see this poem is the way Sir Rabindranath Tagore has seen nature; expressing itself freely through the language of human emotions. You can read all the lines again and again and still not stop yourself from getting your heart melted.
"Stray birds of the summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh. O TROUPE of little vagrants of the world, leave your footprints in my words . . . "
How better can a poetry start . . ? Every sentence you read will give you some new thoughts . . You will start to think about flowers, sun, birds, flame, river , moon , darkness etc. The way Tagore defines the non-existing emotions(It will be hard to believe it doesnt exist if you read this poetry) between them is fantastic. Tagore simply makes you an observer (of nature) rather than a philosopher through this book . . .
A beautiful collection of poems by the one and only Rabindranath Tagore. I quickly picked this up after seeing one of its wonderful poems online -
“I have lost my dewdrop", cries the flower to the morning sky that lost all its stars”
The writing revolves around birds, water, pines, love, our earth, the moon, and many more of nature’s gifts. It's a soothing and peaceful book, and unlike the usual Tagore style, this one doesn't leave your heart aching. Instead, its lenses are smeared with nostalgia. The visuals are so vivid, I could almost smell the world outside his window pane. I ended up reading this again, because that's how much I appreciated the craft. Some of these, for example, are so lovely -
"Your voice, my friend, wanders in my heart, like the muffled sound of the sea among these listening pines."
"The hills are like shouts of children who raise their arms, trying to catch stars."
"The raindrops kissed the earth and whispered,--"We are thy homesick children, mother, come back to thee from the heaven."
"Let my doing nothing when I have nothing to do become untroubled in its depth of peace like the evening in the seashore when the water is silent."
And as beautiful as it was, I take a star away because it got repetitive quickly. The last 50 pages or so, the subjects seemed to be the same, and so did the musings. I skipped through half of them.
The conceit of this book of poetry is that each poem- usually just a single sentence- represents a single, fleeting thought, like a bird flitting by as a man sits watching through a window.
I generally love Tagore's poetry; his better works, such as "Gitanjali" or "The Gardener", are works of beauty, brevity, and subtlety. In "Stray Birds", I felt that his attempt to distill his poetry to its simplest essence drove out much of that beauty and subtlety. Many of these 326 epigrams are little more than trite proverbs.
Still, a good many of them are interesting and memorable. A few of the ones I liked enough to make note of:
"If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars."
"I carry in my world that flourishes the worlds that have failed."
"To be outspoken is easy when you do not wait to speak the complete truth."
"If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out."
"By plucking her petals you do not gather the beauty of the flower."
"Power takes as ingratitude the writhings of its victims."
"The canal loves to think that rivers exist solely to supply it with water."
"Set bird's wings with gold and it will never again soar in the sky."
"I long for the Island of Songs across this heaving Sea of Shouts."
A truly beautiful work that looks behind the illusions we find comfort behind. Simple observations on what we should really be aware of are presented in a way that adds depth to our individual and collective search for meaning. This is definitely a 'centering' book that I will return to when I am feeling overwhelmed by life.
রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুরের Stray Birds আমি প্রথম পড়ি ১৯৯৮ সালে। পরের গ্রীষ্ম, ১৯৯৯-এর দগদগে দুপুরগুলোয় আমি বইটি বাংলা করে অনুবাদ করতে বসেছিলাম—শুধু মুগ্ধতা নয়, একরকম ভালবাসা আর নিঃশব্দ আত্মীয়তার টানে। আজ বুঝি, আমি আসলে আমার নিজস্ব ক্ষণিকা তৈরি করছিলাম—একটি একান্ত, ঘরোয়া, আবেগমাখা অনুবাদ, যেখানে প্রতিটি কবিতা যেন আমার হৃদয়ের জানালায় এসে বসে থাকা এক একটা পাখি।
এই বই ধারাবাহিক কোনও কাব্যগ্রন্থ নয়। বরং প্রতিটি কবিতা ক্ষণিক—হৃদয়-চিন্তার ঝলক। কিছু লাইন যেন জেন গুরুদের ধ্যানমগ্ন মন্ত্র:
“Butterflies count not months but moments, and yet have time enough.”
এর বাংলা আমি করেছিলাম: “প্রজাপতি মাস নয়, মুহূর্ত গোনে—তবুও তার সময় যথেষ্ট।” আর তখনই বুঝেছিলাম—জীবনের ব্যাপ্তি নয়, তার গভীরতাই মূল্যবান।
রবীন্দ্রনাথ এই কবিতাগুলোর মাধ্যমে প্রকৃতি, প্রেম, ঈশ্বর আর নিঃসঙ্গতার এক অলিখিত সেতু নির্মাণ করেন। এখানে নদীর ধারে দাঁড়ানো এক চরিত্রও ঈশ্বরের সন্ধান করে, আর শুকনো পাতার ঝরে পড়া থেকেও জেগে ওঠে জীবনদর্শন।
গ্রীষ্মের সেই একাকী বিকেলগুলোয় আমার হাতে কলম, সামনে খাতা, আর পাশে রবীন্দ্রনাথ—এই অনুবাদ যেন আমার একান্ত ব্যক্তিগত সাধনার মতো ছিল। পাঠক ছিলাম না শুধু, নিজেকে তার ভাষার আত্মীয় ভাবতাম।
আজও যখন কোনও কবিতার একটা পঙক্তি হাওয়ার সঙ্গে উড়ে এসে মনে পড়ে যায়, মনে হয়—Stray Birds আমার কাছে কেবল বই নয়, এটা আমার গ্রীষ্মের আত্মজীবনী। আমার নিজের লেখা ক্ষণিকা, একান্ত ভালোবাসার ছায়াতলে অনূদিত।
আমি আমার একটি প্রিয় কবিতার অনুবাদ দিলাম এখানে। অনুবাদটি করেছিলাম ১৯৯৮ সালের অগস্ট মাই।
মূল কবিতার প্রারম্ভ এরকম:
অবিনয়
হে নিরুপমা, চপলতা আজ যদি কিছু ঘটে করিয়ো ক্ষমা। এল আষাঢ়ের প্রথম দিবস, বনরাজি আজি ব্যাকুল বিবশ, বকুলবীথিকা মুকুলে মত্ত কানন-’পরে— নবকদম্ব মদিরগন্ধে আকুল করে॥ ............
আমার অনুবাদ:
Unhumbled
O peerless maid, If wayward moods do mischief make, I crave thy grace for my mistake. Lo, Asharh's first resplendent day— The woods in rapture pine and sway; Bakul paths with buds are wild, Drunken scents the groves beguiled, And 'mid the boughs where Kadamb bloom, The winds stir all with heady fume.
O peerless maid, If eyes today their bounds betray, Forgive their crime, I humbly pray.
See how the sky in corners far Is riven by the lightning’s spar! From out thy lattice, swift and sly, A playful wind peeps with an eye. The air within grows bold and brash, Through doors and halls it leaps and dashes.
O peerless maid, If tunes today too madly sigh, Forgive the song, and let it fly.
Now pours the rain in torrents loud, The river swells, the banks enshroud, And forest leaves, with trembled voice, In murmur sweetly do rejoice. Moist breath of wind from region wide Now sings the ballad of the tide.
O peerless maid, If I in rite or rule do err, Pray, blame me not, nor harshly stir.
The sun lies hid, the day is dim— This earthly stage seems faint and grim. No task remains, no soul is near, The roads are bare, the fields unclear, No cattle low, no footsteps ring— A painted hush on everything.
O peerless maid, If now my heart be rash or bold, Forgive the slips that love hath told.
Thy dusky eyes, O gentle grace, Now bear the raincloud’s soft embrace. Thy curling locks, in shadow dressed, Are garlanded with jasmines pressed. And on thy brow, in season’s glow, The monsoon lays its welcome-show.
"In the moon, thou sendest thy love letter to me" said the night to the sun "I leave my answers in tears upon the grass."
I have never read much of poetry, but from the moment I read the first line, I wasn't able to put the book down. The words are simple, resonating with a deeper meaning, they give you peace and simultaneously initiate a tornado of emotions. Nature couldn't be described better by Sir Rabindranath Tagore. Every poem depicts it with some phantasm and yet humane element.
Recommends to all poetry lovers as well non-lovers.
Kādai daļai es tagad izlasīšos visai sekls un vēsturi/literatūru nezinošs, taču šīs mazrindes man sniedza tikai aizkaitinājumu par to, ka tērēju savu laiku. Liela daļa īsdomu ir "Arī pirdiens ir liecība par dzīvību" stilā. Reizēm sajūta, ka mūsu tagadējais prezidents Levits ir Rabindranata skolnieks. Citēšu: "Staigāt nozīmē pacelt un nolaist kājas"...
Savā laikā labā kompānijā pie pareiziem apstākļiem mēs tādas grāmatas varējām ģenerēt stundā kādas trīs :D
I'm not really a poetry fan, and if it were not for a reading challenge I never would have picked this up, but I'm happy I did. I'm not a convert to loving poetry, but this was beautiful.
Wonderful work from Tagore! It's hard to express the magnitude of sweetness one could receive after reading it. Highly recommended to read in the dawn or dusk of the day.
3.5 rounded down. A book of very short (1-2 line) poems free for Kindle from Amazon. Originally written in 1913. The title comes from the first poem, "Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh."
They're short, here's more, "The world loved man when he smiled. The world became afraid of man when he laughed."
"Men are cruel but Man is kind."
"Either you have work or you have not. When you have to say, "Let us do something," then begins mischief."
Never has love, painful joy, peace been so eloquently presented in such a sensuous manner in which Tagore carves his beautiful prose. Stray Birds is a collection of poems based on musings Tagore penned. His feelings and thoughts sing to you thru his magical verses.��
Known for his graceful words Tagore's meaning of life will touch your heart. The sentences reveal one's soul which can be translated world wide and shared ��by all. Tagore and beauty - synonymous. Try to enjoy Tagore in quiet solitude if possible, only enhancing his prose.��
excerpt from Stray Birds ���ONCE we dreamt that we were strangers. We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.���
It`s sheer absurdity to review a poem; esp. if it`s from Tagore. In the first place, poetry is never meant to be reviewed. The delicate art to weave a fascinating world with an array of words has to be experienced and lived! Rather, it`s not just the words but something beyond language adds to the life of a poem.
Reluctant to fly away like the birds, the reverberations of those beautiful lines stay there. With each line, Stray Birds evokes the deeper imaginary realms within us. I wonder, from where Tagore`s words find that effortless grace?!
We come across the answer in his own lines:
"The poet wind is out over the sea and the forest to seek his own voice."
Bầy Chim Lạc bao gồm 326 bài thơ, là nơi Tagore hóa thân thành muôn vàn sự vật trên thế gian, từ cái vĩ đại như trăng sao, trời biển … cho đến những thứ tầm thường như ngọn đèn, muông thú, cây cỏ lá hoa.
Chủ đề của tập thơ dường như không dừng lại cố định ở bất cứ đâu. Cũng giống như những cánh chim chao nghiêng, từng câu thơ ngắn lao vút qua, để lại một vệt sáng, một hình ảnh mơ hồ để độc giả trầm tư suy ngẫm.