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| Foto Konrad Hartter |
From joy's loveliest ocean
there's a flood springing.
Embark all, and set to -
to the oar your strength bringing.
No matter its burden,
our boat sorrow-laden
(if death comes, so let it)
moves through the waves winging.
From joy's loveliest ocean
there's a flood springing.
Who cries from behind us
of doubt or of danger?
Who harps on their fear now,
where fear is no stranger?
What curse, or star's showing
has frowned on our going?
Hoist a sail to the wind now
and we'll move on singing.
From joy's loveliest ocean
there's a flood springing.
Rabindranath Tagore
1861-1941
translated by Joe Winter
This is song 9 from Tagore's Gitanjali (Song offerings), a collection first published in England in 1912, with Tagore's own English translations.
Tagore later said that his poems came to him like wild swans "with a rush of sound and a flutter of wings".
