Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
India
Tagore's "The New Year" (Poem of the Day)

Tagore’s “The New Year” (Poem of the Day)

contributors 01/01/2014

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

(By Rabindranath Tagore)

The New Year

LIKE FRUIT, shaken free by an impatient wind

from the veils of its mother flower,

thou comest, New Year, whirling in a frantic dance

amid the stampede of the wind-lashed clouds

and infuriate showers,

while trampled by thy turbulence

are scattered away the faded and the frail

in an eddying agony of death.

Thou art no dreamer afloat on a languorous breeze,

lingering among the hesitant whisper and hum

of an uncertain season.

Thine is a majestic march, o terrible Stranger,

thundering forth an ominous incantation,

driving the days on to the perils of a pathless dark,

where thou carriest a dumb signal in thy banner,

a decree of destiny undeciphered.

_____________
h/t The Complete Works of Rabindranath Tagore

Tagore (d. 1941) was a Bengali poet, dramatist, novelist, social reformer and theorist of peace. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913.

______________
Related Video:

Rare footage of Tagore:

Filed Under: India, poetry

Primary Sidebar

Juan Cole Fundraiser
DONATED:$7,691
SUPPORTERS:86
TARGET:$30,000
REMAINING:$22,309

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Rashid Khalidi on the Gaza Ceasefire: The veil that has hidden the true nature of the Zionist project was shredded for good
  • The Sumud Aid Flotilla did more than Trump to Achieve Gaza's Fragile Peace
  • Terror from the Skies in the Middle East: Israel and the Ghost of Bomber Harris
  • Iran's Streets 'Transformed' As More Women Shun The Mandatory Hijab
  • Syria's Parliamentary Election Results look Alarmingly like Iraq 2005, which produced a Civil War

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved