Stray Birds
by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
(1)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 sign.
(6)If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.
(12)”What language is thine, O Sea?” “The language of eternal question.” “What language is that answer, O Sky?” “The language of eternal silence.”
(13)Listen, my heart, to the whispers of the world with which it makes love to you.
(21)They throw their shadows before them who carry their lantern on their back.
(22)That I exist is a perpetual surprise which is life.
(32)His own mornings are new surprise to God.
(35)The bird wishes it were a cloud. The cloud wishes it were a bird.
(40)Do not blame your food because you have no appetite.
(43)The fish in the water is silent, the animal on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But Man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.
(46)God finds himself by creating.
(56)Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it.
(57)We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.
(65)Tiny grass, your steps are small, but you possess the earth under your tread.
(66)The infant flower opens its bud and cries, “Dear World, please do not fade.”
(67)God grow weary of great kingdom, but never of little flowers.
(75)We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.
(88)”You are the big drop of dew under the lotus leaf, I am the smaller one on its upper side” said the dewdrop to the lake.
(95)Be still, my heart, these great trees are prayers.
(102)Do not linger to gather flowers to keep them, but walk on, for flowers will keep themselves blooming all your way.