XII
With a glance of your eyes you could plunder all the wealth of songs struck from poets’ harps, fair woman!
But for their praises you have no ear; therefore do I come to praise you.
You could humble at your feet the proudest heads of all the world;
But it is your loved ones, unknown to fame, whom you choose to worship; therefore I worship you.
Your perfect arms would add glory to kingly splendor with their touch;
But you use them to sweep away the dust, and to make clean your humble home; therefore I am filled with awe.
Source: Poetry (June 1913).
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This poem originally appeared in the June 1913 issue of Poetry magazine
A native of Calcutta, India, who wrote in Bengali and often translated his own work into English, Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 — the first Asian to receive the honor. He wrote poetry, fiction, drama, essays, and songs; promoted reforms in education, aesthetics and religion; and in his late sixties he even turned to the visual arts, producing 2,500 paintings and drawings before his death.
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Poems by Rabindranath Tagore