The Gardener is a collection of lyrical poems by Rabindranath Tagore, translated by the author from Bengali. It explores love, devotion, and service through images of gardens, queens, and daily life, sometimes in dialogue. Its tender, meditative voice reflects on longing and human connection.
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Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
THE GARDENER By Rabindranath Tagore Translated by the author from the original Bengali 1915 [Frontispiece: Rabindranath Tagore. Age 16—see tagore.jpg] To W. B. Yeats Thanks are due to the editor of Poetry, a Magazine of Verse, for permission to reprint eight poems in this volume.
Preface
Most of the lyrics of love and life, the translations of which from Bengali are published in this book, were written much earlier than the series of religious poems contained in the book named Gitanjali. The translations are not always literal—the originals being sometimes abridged and sometimes paraphrased.
Rabindranath Tagore.
1
SERVANT. Have mercy upon your servant, my queen!
QUEEN. The assembly is over and my servants are all gone. Why do you come at this late hour?
SERVANT. When you have finished with others, that is my time.
I come to ask what remains for your last servant to do.
QUEEN. What can you expect when it is too late?
SERVANT. Make me the gardener of your flower garden.
QUEEN. What folly is this?
SERVANT. I will give up my other work.
I will throw my swords and lances down in the dust. Do not send me to distant courts; do not bid me undertake new conquests.
But make me the gardener of your flower garden.
QUEEN. What will your duties be?
SERVANT. The service of your idle days.
I will keep fresh the grassy path where you walk in the morning, where your feet will be greeted with praise at every step by the flowers eager for death.
Readnara
