Gitanjali 35

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, novelist, and painter best known for being the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.

He was born in Calcutta, India, on May 7, 1861. The author of many poetry collections, his book Gitanjali: Song Offerings (Macmillan, 1913) received the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died on August 7, 1941.He also wrote the national anthem “Jan Gan Mana” for India.

About This Poem

“Gitanjali 35” was published in Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (Macmillan, 1913).

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

–Rabindranath Tagore

This post is in response to the daily prompt Finally