Selected Poems from Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore, Part 1 of 2

The first Nobel Prize winner for Literature from Asia, Rabindranath Tagore, is renowned for introducing new prose and verse forms, plus the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, instead of adopting the usual traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. “Gitanjali” (Song Offerings) contains Tagore’s English prose translations of religious poems from several of his Bengali verse collections, which resulted in him winning the Nobel Prize in 1913. “Ah, my master. …I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind. I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart.”