The Fugitive Quotes

“My mind still buzzed with the cares of a busy day; I sat on without noting how twilight
was deepening into dark.
Suddenly light stirred across the gloom and touched me as with a finger.
I lifted my head and met the gaze of the full moon widened in wonder like a child's. It held my eyes for long, and I felt as though a love-letter had been secretly dropped in at my window.
And ever since my heart is breaking to write for answer something fragrant as Night's unseen flowers — great as her declaration spelt out in nameless stars.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“In the night the song came to me; but you were not there.
It found the words for which I had been seeking all day. Yes, in the stillness a moment after dark they throbbed into music, even as the stars then began to pulse with light; but you were not there. My hope was to sing it to you in the morning; but, try as I might, though the music came, the words hung back, when you were beside me.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“I am like the night to you, little flower.

I can only give you peace and a wakeful silence hidden in the dark.

When in the morning you open your eyes, I shall leave you to a world a-hum with bees, and songful with birds.

My last gift to you will be a tear dropped into the depth of your youth; it will make your smile all the sweeter, and bemist your outlook on the pitiless mirth of day.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“For once be careless, timid traveller, and utterly lose your way;
wide-awake though you are, be like broad daylight enticed by and netted in mist.

Do not shun the garden of Lost Hearts waiting at the end of the wrong road,
where the grass is strewn with wrecked red flowers, and disconsolate water heaves in the troubled sea.

Long have you watched over the store gathered by weary years.
Let it be stripped, with nothing remaining but the desolate triumph of losing all.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“Give me the supreme courage of love, this is my prayer — the courage to speak, to do,
to suffer at thy will, to leave all things or be left alone.
Strengthen me on errands of danger, honour me with pain, and help me climb to that difficult mood which sacrifices daily to thee.
Give me the supreme confidence of love, this is my prayer — the confidence that belongs to life in death, to victory in defeat, to the power hidden in frailest beauty, to that dignity in pain which accepts hurt but disdains to return it.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“In the evening after they have brought their cattle home, they sit on the grass before their huts to know that you are among them unseen, to repeat in their songs the name which they have fondly given you.
While kings' crowns shine and disappear like falling stars, around village huts your name rises through the still night from the simple hearts of your lovers whose names are unrecorded.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“I have looked on this picture in many a month of March when the mustard is in bloom — this lazy line of the water and the grey of the sand beyond, the rough path along the river-bank carrying the comradeship of the field into the heart of the village.
I have tried to capture in rhyme the idle whistle of the wind, the beat of the oar-strokes from a passing boat.
I have wondered in my mind how simply it stands before me, this great world: with what fond and familiar ease it fills my heart, this encounter with the Eternal Stranger.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“I am the boat, you are the sea, and also the boatman.
Though you never make the shore, though you let me sink, why should I be foolish and afraid?
Is reaching the shore a greater prize than losing myself with you?
If you are only the haven, as they say, then what is the sea?
Let it surge and toss me on its waves, I shall be content.
I live in you whatever and however you appear.
Save me or kill me as you wish, only never leave me in other hands.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“Eyes see only dust and earth, but feel with the heart, and know pure joy.
The delights blossom on all sides in every form, but where is your heart's thread to make a wreath of them?
My master's flute sounds through all things, drawing me out of my lodgings wherever they may be, and while I listen I know that every step I take is in my master's house.
For he is the sea, he is the river that leads to the sea, and he is the landing-place.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“I thought I would write love's words in their own colour; but that lies deep in the heart, and tears are pale.
Would you know them, friend, if the words were colourless?
I thought I would sing love's words to their own tune, but that sounds only in my heart, and my eyes are silent.
Would you know them, friend, if there were no tune?”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“My songs are like bees; they follow through the air some fragrant trace — some memory — of you, to hum around your shyness, eager for its hidden store.
When the freshness of dawn droops in the sun, when in the noon the air hangs low with heaviness and the forest is silent, my songs return home, their languid wings dusted with gold.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“Be not concerned about her heart, my heart: be content if the music is true, though the words are not to be believed; enjoy the grace that dances like a lily on the rippling, deceiving surface, whatever may lie beneath.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“O that I were stored with a secret, like unshed rain in summer clouds — a secret, folded up in silence, that I could wander away with.

O that I had someone to whisper to, where slow waters lap under trees that doze in the sun.

The hush this evening seems to expect a footfall, and you ask me for the cause of my tears.

I cannot give a reason why I weep, for that is a secret still withheld from me.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“We came hither together, friend, and now at the cross-roads I stop to bid you farewell.

Your path is wide and straight before you, but my call comes up by ways from the unknown.

I shall follow wind and cloud; I shall follow the stars to where day breaks behind the hills;
I shall follow lovers who, as they walk, twine their days into a wreath on a single thread
of song, "I love.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive

“I hear the thundering flood tumbling my life from world to world and form to form, scattering my being in an endless spray of gifts, in sorrowings and songs..”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The Fugitive