Cruel Kindness -- English translation
I seek so many things with all my heart
But you have saved me denying.
All through my life
This your cruel kindness
Has filled my being.
The things you gave me without asking –
This sky full of light
This body, this soul and this mind
Saving me ever from too much craving
For these great gifts you are making me fit.
The way that leads to you
Sometimes I forget, sometimes I keep
But you are so cruel
From me you often step aside.
This is but your kindness, I know
Now you shove me away to take me later
Making me fit for my union with you
Saving me from my half-hearted love.
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (born May 7, 1861, Calcutta [now Kolkata], India—died August 7, 1941, Calcutta) Bengali poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright, essayist, and painter who introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. He was highly influential in introducing Indian culture to the West and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of early 20th-century India. In 1913 he became the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.