A note on Rabindranath Tagore on National Poetry Day

2 October 2014
Rabindranath Tagore.jpg (

Photo courtesy of Find Inside India

Today is National Poetry Day in the UK and celebrated by some here in the US. In honor of this day, I wanted to reflect on a poem that is meaningful to me.

This passage by Rabindranath Tagore is included in Gitanjali, a collection of writings for which Tagore received the Noble Prize for Literature in 1912. Powerful verses like this move me every time I hear them. How good for all of us to notice the same stream of life that flows through all things and use this recognition as we create a new humanity:


The same stream of life that flows through my veins night and day flows through the whole world and dances in rhythmic measure.

It is the same life that shoots joy through the dust of the earth into countless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean cradle of ebb and flow – life and death. 

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.

My pride comes from the life throb of ages dancing in my heart this moment.