Thou hast made me endless: Tagore

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

 Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure,

 THIS IS MY prayer to thee, my Lord-strike, strike at the root of penury in my heart,

 CLOUDS heap upon clouds and it darkens,

HAVE YOU NOT heard his silent steps? He comes, comes, ever comes

 Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure

Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.

This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.

Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.

                                        ----Tagore

I MADE my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.

    -----William Butler Yeats in A Coat

‘Thou hast made me endless’ is the first poem with which Gitanjali, Song Offerings begins commemorating, celebrating the bond of relationship which it exists between the Soul and the Supreme Soul, the Mind and the Over Mind, the Self and the Supreme Self; the Mortal and the Divine, whichever call you it is but the Mystical  Communion which but none can analyze and annotate, elucidate and explain.

Such is the pleasure of God that He has made man endless. The vessel which He has given to man empties it from time to time filling with the fresh one is but the rule of the Law Divine. To see it otherwise in the Yeatsian term, it is but the mythological coat which he keeps changing and wearing and discarding from time to time. Human forms and bodily shapes and figures keep changing. While dwelling upon the topic, man as puppets into the hands of destiny dances before the eyes and imagery conjures upon the mind’s plane. The image of Krishna flashes upon the mind’s eyes.

The little flute of a reed He carries it over the hills and dales and pipes the melodies ever tuned, ever played melodiously. The whole world of Creation, the whole of green Nature, who has made them? It is the handiwork of the same God who has made life and death. In the midst of hills, dales, valleys, rocks, stones and trees, fields and fallows, woods and greenery, pastures and he plays the music, the Divine Music so fresh with notes and tunes, so melodious and sonorous.

At the immortal touch of the Divine Hands, his little human heart its limits of joy and means it so multifarious in dream and imagery and utterance. His gifts come to the human hands. Ages pass, days, months and years and still now the world is being carried far and the Godly Mercy at the root of all and man at the receiving end of it all. Man cannot think of existence in sole isolation. Without God and His Mercy, nothing can materialize it here.

Repeated birth, repeated death, this cycle of eternal life, eternal death, will continue for so long as has been since times immemorial as an unbreakable chain, discerning the mythological coat, singing the songs of life and the world, fluting the music of life and the world in the surroundings pastoral and countrified while on the way to, coming from, retreating back to. But it is a matter to feel, who the unknown flute-player and whose the flute? Whose it the musical notes and what about them? Who the mortal player? Who the Golden Flutist? It is but a matter of metaphor and simile. Sometimes God has been imagined as the Flute-player playing upon the flute reed of man’s notes.

Civilisation is hooped together, brought
Under a rule, under the semblance of peace
By manifold illusion; but man’s life is thought,
And he, despite his terror, cannot cease
Ravening through century after century,
Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come
Into the desolation of reality:
Egypt and Greece, good-bye, and good-bye, Rome!
Hermits upon Mount Meru or Everest,
Caverned in night under the drifted snow,
Or where that snow and winter’s dreadful blast
Beat down upon their naked bodies, know
That day bring round the night, that before dawn
His glory and his monuments are gone.

     -----W.B.Yeats in Meru

I

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another's arms, birds in the trees,

—Those dying generations—at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect.

II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,

Nor is there singing school but studying

Monuments of its own magnificence;

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium.

III

O sages standing in God's holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

And be the singing-masters of my soul.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire

And fastened to a dying animal

It knows not what it is; and gather me

Into the artifice of eternity.

IV

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

                    -----W.B.Yeats in Sailing to Byzantium

THIS IS MY prayer to thee, my Lord-strike, strike at the root of penury in my heart

 THIS IS MY prayer to thee, my Lord-strike, strike at the root of penury in my heart.

Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.

Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.

Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might.

Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles.

And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love.

                   ----Tagore

When God at first made man,

Having a glass of blessings standing by,

“Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can.

Let the world’s riches, which dispersèd lie,

Contract into a span.”

So strength first made a way;

Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure.

When almost all was out, God made a stay,

Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,

Rest in the bottom lay.

“For if I should,” said he,

“Bestow this jewel also on my creature,

He would adore my gifts instead of me,

And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;

So both should losers be.

“Yet let him keep the rest,

But keep them with repining restlessness;

Let him be rich and weary, that at least,

If goodness lead him not, yet weariness

May toss him to my breast.”

                ---George Herbert in The Pulley

This is my prayer to thee, my Lord as a poem is a prayer of a different sort other than ‘Where the mind is without fear’, ‘Have you heard his silent steps?’ and ‘Clouds heap upon clouds’ as one should keep it mind that Tagore has carried his poems from different volumes and so went on translating into English to give a new garb apart from additions and  alterations he has made to transcreate and transform them into an alien tongue. To render from one language to another is no easy work. As these are simpler lyrics so these too can be, but the tedious poems cannot be. But instead of that the theme is the same and the poetical series reverberating with the same idea. Here the poet is not listening to the footsteps, but is asking God to correct his ways so that he may be submissive and humble enough to be able to see His reflection. How to reach that transcendental state of realization? How to reach that level as devotion is a thing of the heart? If the devotion is not in the heart, one will not be able to feel Him. To be devotional is to be virtuous and righteous; is to rise above ego, hypocrisy and falsehood. To be pious and holy is the main thing of deliberation. Riches and pleasures lead not unto Him. If one starts sharing the things with Him then one may come to feel it. If it is haughty and stubborn, hammer You; if it is ignorantly poor, enlighten You; if it is audaciously drunken with of power and pelf, flatten You. The intensity of feeling can only be able to forge the relationship of bonding. How should it be the path of life? How should it be the path of devotion?  

The poem under our discussion is in the form of a prayer asking the Lord to strike at the root of penury so that he will have no qualm against anyone. How to give heart to God? How to get His Love? The poet asks to strike it as because without cleansing and purifying impurities he will not able to get His mercy and kindness. If the heart is not holy and pure and humble, things will come to naught. Without the hammering of it and testing of love, how can one receive His bounty? That is why the poet requests God to purge it.

 Give him the strength to bear the joys and sorrows of life. In a balanced way, he wants to go his away. There is nothing as that to be disturbed with sorrows, there is nothing to be overjoyed with joy. This is life as there are sorrows so are the joys. God must give him the strength to bear with them.

Give him the strength to make his love fruitful in service. Love is at the root of all; all inspiration and work. If one loses the inspiration, one will not get the energy to do something. If he is loveful only then he will be able to view the whole world as his own. It is love which gives one a broader outlook if one seeks to utilize that energy. So he wants to use it in some fruitful service. It is love which but narrows the gap between the personal and the impersonal. Such a thing it is in Arnold’s Dover Beach and Browning’s The Last Ride Together. But Tagore wants to channelize that thing of love and lost love in the service to mankind.

Give him the strength to see the poor with the same eyes. Give him the power to stand before the mighty and the powerful. There should not be anything which will cause disdain in him for the poor. What is it if they are poor? Are they not men? They too are men, they too are important for us.

Give him the strength to rise above the daily trifles. Man remains engrossed in day-to-day activities of life and the world in such a way that he gets no time to devote to and that is why the poet prays to God to lift him from the mire of it. Wordsworth too denounces the materialism of the age in his poem, The World Is Too Much With Us, but here the Kabirite thing is the point of deliberation. The things of the world will remain as they are.

 Give him the strength to surrender the same strength to Him finally with all his love. The poet as a human being knows it that he has nothing his own here. Everything is but of Lord-God. Even if he is with strength, He has got from the same God, who is the source of all. The word strength means moral strength, spiritual strength.

How to see Him? How the path of man? What should it be the goal of life? Without the sense of humility, we cannot God. His Will is the real thing; His Word is that which lasts it here.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives;

But though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

         -----George Herbert in Virtue

 CLOUDS heap upon clouds and it darkens

 CLOUDS heap upon clouds and it darkens. Ah, love, why dost thou let me wait outside at the door all alone?

 In the busy moments of the noontide work I am with the crowd, but on this dark lonely day it is only for thee that I hope.

If thou showest me not thy face, if thou leavest me wholly aside, I know not how I am to pass these long, rainy hours.

I keep gazing on the far away gloom of the sky, and my heart wanders wailing with the restless wind.

                        ------Tagore

Strange fits of passion I have known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the Lover's ear alone,
What once to me befell.

When she I loved was strong and gay,
And like a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath the evening Moon.

             ----William Wordsworth in "Strange Fits of Passion"

‘Clouds heap upon clouds and it darkens’ is not at all a simple poetry piece, but a song so lucid, musical, sonorous and melodious and a wordy and structural poem cannot be as such and here lies in the beauty of it as for the inherent lyrical content, the devotional fervor and picturesque setting against the backdrop of the clouds darkening the sky, cast around, looming over to come with a burst or downpour, storm, thunderbolt and lightning. What it distinguishes the prose lines is its lucidity, singing quality, lyrical note and one cannot without humming, singing it, just as a soul’s prayer, so full of self-surrender, utter submission and utmost humility. It is time to go home, stay put in, indoors, but the beloved still waiting for.

After a reading of the text, one will definitely say it, poetry is song and music, picture and images, all combined in one, but what we love utmost is his singing quality, lyrical tone and poetic expression with which he has endowed it with, as he is more poetical here than expected.

It is a poem of love and Divine Love when one takes to love soulfully, heartfully so full of emotion and feelings showing it utmost intimacy and the poem transports us to a different world of simple imagery and reflection where serenity and quietude claw each other, pastoralism and classicism compete with for a space. The hut, the mud-house, the courtyard, the country, the solitary landscape and the ways losing sight of in the midst of the fair country and the woods, how can we without these archetypal images so scenic and picturesque of Radha and Krishna taking to Brindavan and the banks of the Yamuna? Without giving one’s heart and soul, one cannot say what it is love so is bhakti rasa, devotional spirit. The journey of life is also almost the same when one undertakes the final journey of life. At that time the images of the resting places and inns conjure upon the mind’s space.

Ah love, why do you let me outside the door all alone? Here lies in the beauty of the Love Divine. The pain of Mira twitches us to quote from her. How to lead unto Him? What is the pathway? Is love a type of burning? Is love a type of tireless waiting, pining? What is love? Who a lover? The pains of love only a lover can whisper into the ears of a lover, as William Wordsworth says it in Strange Fits of Passion, whatever be the context full of nature mysticism or amorous expression.

All through the day one remains busy with day-to-day activities and thus failing to get time to think of any meeting, but on this dark and lonely day, one may hope for.

The beloved keeps it thinking within when the lover will turn up. When will she be able to meet up as it is dark and lonely? Clouds are gathering and it will thunder. Lightning will flash and strike upon. At that time who will be with? For this time man needs companionship and that too during the bad times as for to share the joys and sorrows.  

If you show it not the face, if you keep aside, letting not meet, then how to pass these long hours? If she is kept waiting, how will she pass? If he turns not up, how to be in? How to pass the time? How will she the long hours in the absence of the lover? The soul’s fears, a lover’s heart, how to analyze it? What it passes over the heart? It is only a heart-matter, a soul-matter. Love is the name of waiting, yearning, burning. The meeting may be or may not be in fate. Love is without any desire. The poem though written in the form of prayer seen through the pains of love is personal as well as impersonal. Maybe it the poet is raying, saying it all the joys and sorrows of life, maybe it he about the same of human life and it may also be that these the words of a beloved. It is difficult to understand the mystic poetry of love, the Sufistic philosophy of ram and Rahima, who the piya and who the priyatama. The answer is, God is Piya and the soul the priyatama, as the beloved and it happens in love, deeper love; in devotion, deeper devotion.

Against the backdrop of the clouds gathering and the stormy scene, on finding the lover unturned, what can she do? She has seen pathways for so long and has waited outside the house. But instead of, the lover has not turned up. She keeps gazing at the far away gloom of the sky getting lost into the spaces of vacant reflections of far. Her heart also keeps wandering and wailing with the restless wind.

It is really difficult to dive into the sea of bhakti and to gather pearls and corals as is the case with the saints coming with the stones and rudraksha beads. It is a poem of faith and devotion; imagery and reflection; prayer and submission. The pains of love only a devotee can feel it what it is in the Love Divine how to undergo the tests of Love? Without reading Mira, Sur, Tulsi, Kabir, Jayasi, Dara and Rahim one cannot what it is in devotional poetry; the Divine Music of Devotion.

Mira’s bhajans, classical thumri, khayals, ragas and ghazal can enlighten on this topic. Mahadevi Verma’s poems are also expressive of such a content.

There is also a layer of meaning. The poet lies it waiting for when he will be able to meet. It is dark and lonely outside. When will he be called in? Is that also not in his destiny scheduled to be held as the inner heart feels within? When none is around, it is none but God seems to be the closer relative and who else can be if one who has given birth is not then who is own in this world, the same giver and take of human life?

Addressing the personal sorrows of life, Tagore could have written it. It is both impersonal as well as personal. The other thing too is this that as the songs of Gitanjali are never the same, somewhere the childish heart is the protagonist, somewhere the singer, somewhere the musician, somewhere the painter, somewhere the philosopher. The images of the boat, the boatman and he singing also lie in inherent. All are but offerings to the Divine. But the periphery is one, the bonding between the Soul and the Supreme Soul. The soul is always in quest of God. But when will that meeting be held?

Clouds heap upon clouds and it darkens as a song lyric is a song of love so mystical and classical in content, theme and expression telling of the bhakti-tradition, Vaishnava philosophy and the singing Bauls mad in spiritual ecstasy. Though all the poems are but Song Offerings, so this too is one of the flowers embedded in the flower-garland offered to the Divine. When the trifle things of the world humble the soul, it prays, God, You are the Ocean of Love. The love of the heart takes him to the Divine and the poem is a glaring example of the mystic poetry of love. There is a continuity of Indian thought and tradition in it and without being a saint-singer one cannot write it.

Let us see how Andrew Marvell writes in To His Coy Mistress though a bit different proposition,  Wordsworth too tells of the strange fits of passion but in a different context.

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

                 ----- Andrew Marvell  in To His Coy Mistress

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature's gentlest boon!
And, all the while, my eyes I kept
On the descending Moon.

My Horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopp'd:
When down behind the cottage roof
At once the bright Moon dropp'd.

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a Lover's head—
"O mercy!" to myself I cried,
"If Lucy should be dead!"

                -----Wordsworth in Strange Fits of Passion

He that is down needs fear no fall,
He that is low no pride;
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.

I am content with what I have,
Little be it or much;
And, Lord, contentment still I crave
Because Thou savest such.

Fulness to such a burden is
That go in pilgrimage;
Here little and hereafter bliss
Is best from all to age.

                  -----John Bunyan in He That Is Down Needs Fear No Fall

HAVE YOU NOT heard his silent steps? He comes, comes, ever comes

HAVE YOU NOT heard his silent steps? He comes, comes, ever comes.

Every moment and every age, every day and every night he comes, comes, ever comes.

Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind, but all their notes have always proclaimed, 'He comes, comes, ever comes.'

In the fragrant days of sunny April through the forest path he comes, comes, ever comes.

In the rainy gloom of July nights on the thundering chariot of clouds he comes, comes, ever comes.

In sorrow after sorrow it is his steps that press upon my heart, and it is the golden touch of his feet that makes my joy to shine.

                               ----Tagore

‘Have you not heard his silent steps?’ is one of those poems of Gitanjali which tell of the Divine Presence felt through inward consciousness always resounding with, ‘He comes, comes, ever comes.’  Where is He not? When does He not come to? Whether you call Him or not, but He comes, comes, ever comes. Wherever you want Him, He is by you to extend a helping hand. The whole that see you is the Creation of His; the vast and wide world of stars and heavenly bodies. The flowers which look lovely, the butterflies which hover about are the things of His; the hills, dales, vales and brooks with the sparrows twittering and wood-notes; the dawn break and the eve fall, all; the silences of the solitary landscapes, horizons seem to be lurking and meeting somewhere at a distance everything but His sketch and drawing. The Lord God is the Maker of it all. Nothing is beyond His imagery and knowledge. If you call Him with your heart, He will come, come, definitely come. The whole earth is the playfield of His and He keeps doing the lila. Just try to call Him, call Him, if you have not, just call Him. As the anklets tinkle they so are the lilts of His footsteps resonant with, resounding with all over the universe and with the jingle, tinkle of the bells, the whole of the Divine Lila dances before the eyes. He is the Maker of fate, destiny and who else can know better than him? He is the Singer of singers, the Mystic of mystics, the Musician of musicians, the Painter of painters.

Have you not heard his silent steps?, with this the poem begins, wanting to know whether one has heard it or not. He comes, comes, ever comes, is the answer rounding the same jointly. One who is the Knower of all, one who is Omnipresent, who is Omnipotent, the Almighty God knows it all, knows it all and where is it not footsteps resounding? One who is the Seer of the past, present and future knows it all, nothing hidden from Him. Just have faith in Him, just have belief in Him, leaving your all to Him, surrendering oneself totally.

Every moment, every age, every day and every night, He comes, comes, ever comes. One should have the yearning within to hear His footsteps approaching. He is not far from us, He is just nearer to us which but we know it not, which but we feel it not, who is He going, passing through the ways just like a stranger, an unknown passer-by, a common wayfarer. He is present in every age. The moments which are passing are the moments of His. So are the days and the nights. If comes He not, who will? When does He not come to? He is even present during the night time.

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
    Either man’s work, or his own gifts. Who best
    Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
    And post o’er land and ocean without rest.
    They also serve who only stand and wait.”

              ----John Milton in On His Blindness

Many a song he has sung in many a mood of his, but all their notes have proclaimed, relayed to, He comes, comes, ever comes. He is in all the notes and the ragas, in all the sound-notes and speech-melodies. The tunes and tones may vary as per the song, but the message is the same, He is in it all and all those variations in themes and melodies have been created by Him. If He is in the melody of sorrow, internal sorrow expressed through lyrical words and music, He is in the happiest songs expressing joy and delight. If He has made vedana, pain, He has also made ananda, delight. Just try to approach Him with your utmost humility and self-surrender. He will hear, hear, hear you. All your sorrows will vanish away.

In the fragrant days of sunny April, He comes, comes, ever comes through the forest path. How beautiful the scenery is? How landscapic is it! If Nature is to be seen, one needs to pass through the forest, some trees with leaves, some yet to shed the old ones and some with reddish hues, all but glistening. Some trees with clusters of blossoms are yet to take us by surprise. The cool shades of the trees have always eluded the passers-by. Chaitra and Baisakh are the months of the Hindu calendar vividly described here. To sit under the cool shades of the trees and to quench thirst and to think of whose Creation is this and to start the journey again are but the marvels of poetic imagery and imagination. Here none but a traveller, a shepherd can feel it. Wild blooms hanging by and so fragrant with the glistening new buds of leaves charm us to our core.

The mystery and beauty of the forest-paths, so full of eerie silence and bizarre habitation have always eluded man. God coming through the forest-paths is but a type of imagery. The picture of a madhubana dances before the eyes where Krishna used to play the flute, taking us to Brindaban.

In the rainy July of gloomy nights on the thundering chariot of clouds, He comes, comes, ever comes. One who has made the summer and the spring has also made the rainy season. But when it darkens and it thunders and lightning strikes, the beloved feels afraid of being lonely in the room, the soul feels it lonely and disheartened in the absence of the lover yet to return from. The same classical love imagery has been used in as it is in Krishnalila, as it is in Kalidasa’s Meghdutam. Shravan and Bhadra are the months of the Indian rainy season. The word gloom adds to fear and suspense going within the human psyche and the persona cast against the backdrop of loneliness and striking of some unknown misfortune. How does the imagery and scenery turn to from the spring and the summer to the cloudbursts, rain and thundershowers? At that time, when it thunders and flashes, bolts from the blue seem to be striking, the soul fears to be alone in the room. Sometimes the gloom seconded by tempests and cyclonic winds and rains take the people by surprise befalling with some trouble. Here Indra’s a little bit of kopa, curse if it is otherwise referred to in terms of gloom, thunder, rain and lightning frightening the self may  be taken to mythically to dwell it differently. The internal fear of man as for life and existence has never left him care-free as this body is the body of maya. These too seem to have been touched upon to some extent. Rains, mild rains drizzling without the lightning and thunder appear to be lovely too. Shelley too refers to the concept of Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwara in the poem, The Cloud.

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,

From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken

The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,

As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under,

And then again I dissolve it in rain,

And laugh as I pass in thunder.

----Shelley in The Cloud

In sorrow after sorrow it is his steps that press upon my heart, and it is the golden touch of His feet that makes his joy to shine. Sorrow after sorrow keeps raking the self and so are the hurts and wounds of the physical world which but disturb the inner self. But what has it to be done? These must be endured at any cost. But all those complaints and grievances vanish away the moment He touches with His Golden Feet. Sorrows but lead unto Him and here man is put to test. All the doubts with regard to His coming dispel it in the end; all the troubles of tireless long waiting too mean it not. Just a touch of His Lotus-feet is enough for all bliss and blessing to be bestowed upon man.

How musical is it to be tuned to the poetic repetition, He comes, comes, ever comes. We think it within where He is coming from. It is but bhakti-rasa which is doing the marvels herein with the images of Sagun Brahma, the In-form Divine, nay of the Nirguna Brahma, the Formless Divine which is not the first choice of Tagore. Bhakti, not bairagya, renunciation is the love of the poet as he seems to be flirting with Maya which is but a thug, as Kabir says it.

On reading the poem, questions arise in the mind with regard to if God is a kith and kin of the poet, where God is indeed, if he has seen Him. Classical and pastoral, both the types of imagery have been used and applied in writing the poem. The small poem replete with the bhakti-rasa, the devotional fervor is really one of the marvels of classical love poetry and such a thing has been envisaged in Radha’s love for Krishna and others. Mira with an idol of Krishna into the hands of hers too may be the picture. Where is Krishna? Krishna is in the heart? Where is Rama? Rama is in the heart. India is a land of Rama and Krishna and without them India cannot be India.

Though entitled, as most of the poems of Gitanjali are, it can be titled as ‘Silent Steps’ or ‘Have you not heard his silent steps?’. The poem too is a poem of silent steps, the Silent Steps of God, the Lord-God. The pictures and images of classical love poetry will be apt if we discuss the poem in that light as there is something which goes as the background music of the song under discussion.

Ghunghat ke pat khol tohe piya milengei, slide the doors, hangover of the curtain, you will get your lover husband, may be another point of reference. Why is this ghunghata, the covering that hinders from seeing? Why the curtain over? Lift it. Open the door of your heart and you will see God. Lift the veil to see the beloved. Lift the veil to see Him. Discard the darkness which lies it within. Cleanse it, purify the soul with your innocence to see Him. Light the lamp of light and light is but knowledge, a lamp burning, dispelling darkness, which is but ignorance. There are several layers of thought and meaning and idea.

Kabir’s “Pothi padhi padhi jag muwa, pandit bhaya na koya, dhai akhar prem ka, padhe se pandit hoya”, Reading texts absorbingly till the end, none could be a pundit of, one who reads two and a half letters of love is a scholar really.

There are no traces of agnosticism, skepticism, nihilism and atheism in it. Not even the crisis in faith comes nearer to inflict the self. The central idea of the poem is His coming, the Divine Resonance vibrating with, the Divine Reflection seen it in all. Where is He not and in what not? Just have a tryst with, do experiment with and you will see is the theme and His Presence is befitting enough, the Divine Providence so bountiful and blissful endowing with blessedness. 

There is something of the horror and terror, fear element when he mentions the rainy gloom of July nights and the thundering chariot as for his arrival. When he uses the words for the songs he has sung in many moods, he refers to waiting and the mind resting on hope and assurance instead of the futility experienced in the end. The fragrant days of sunny April through the forest path add to the pictorial, landscapic, scenic quality of the poem against the backdrop of a natural phenomena and panorama. The words ‘sorrow after sorrow it is his steps that press upon my heart’ refer to the bearing of pain, feelings undergone, the waiting done for and love grows it not suddenly and that too Divine Love which but takes it time. The ‘golden touch of his feet that makes my joy to shine’ is all about the fruit of labour and waiting, the final stage of realization. When he says ‘every moment and every age, every day and every night’ with regard to His arrival, the poet seems to be referring to the kaleidoscope of time telling of His presence. As for the first, the hearing of His steps pervades the spirit of the whole poem.

A small poem, a marvel of devotional lyricism and musicality, religious fervor and utter submission, Silent Steps which can win the admiration of the readers is really a great virtue of his poetry and he has carried it down following it, drawing and deriving and recreating from the stream of bhakti-rasa where he has drunk deep, the same medievalist trend of classical love poetry offering solace and redemption to mankind.