GITANJALI (Song Offerings) Rabindranath Tagore

1

The child who is decked with prince’s robes and who has jeweled chains round

      his neck loses all pleasure in his play, his dress hampers him at every step.

In fear that it may be frayed, or stained with dust he keeps himself from the world,

      and is afraid even to move.

Mother, it is no gain, thy bondage of finery, if it keeps one shut off from the

      healthful dust of the earth, if it robs me of the right of entrance to the great fair 

      of common human life.

2

Where the mind is without fear and head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depths of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection.

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert
      sand of death habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action-

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

3

On that day when death will knock at thy door

What wilt thou offer to him?

Oh, I will set before my guest the full vessel of my life – I will never let him 

     go with empty hands.

All that vintage of all my autumn days and summer nights, all the earnings 

     and gleanings of my busy life will I place before him at the close of my 

     days when death will knock at my door.