Unending LoveA Poem

By Rabindranath Tagore

The Author….

Rabindranath Tagore was an Indian poet and philosopher and the first Asian to have won the Novel Prize for Literature (he won it in 1913). He is considered a creative genius. He wrote in the various genres, and used themes that transcended both time and place. He also wrote the national Anthem of Bangladesh.

Writing very early, he published his first book when he was 17 years old. After a brief stay in England where he studied law, he came back to India and became most important and popular writer of the colonial era.

He wrote in the various genres primarily in Bengali but translated many of his works into English himself. Readers will find his writing highly imaginative, deeply religious, and imbued with love of nature and his homeland.

He was knighted by British King George V in 1915.

Before reading….

Translate the following phrase into Filipino, paying particular

attention to the word.

“My spell-bound heart”

“Ang puso kong nabibighani”

“Old chronicles of love”

“Lumang sanaysay ng pag-ibig”

“In shapes that renew and renew forever”

“Sa hugis na binago at binabago magpakailanman”

“Clad in the light of a pole-star”

“Armas sa liwanag ng isang mataas bituin”

“Necklace of songs”

“Kuwintas ng kanta”

“Piercing the darkness of time”

“Butasan ang kadiliman ng oras”

“Ancient tale of being apart”

“Lumang kuwento ng pag hihiwalay”

“the love of all man’s day”

“Ang araw ng pag-ibig ng mga tao”

Unending LoveI seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times,

In life after life, in age after age forever.My spell-bound heart made and re-made the necklace of songs

That you take as a gift, wear around your neck in your many formsIn life after life, in age after age forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,Its ancient tale of being apart or together,

As I stare on and into the past, in the end you emergeClad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:

You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have here on the stream that brings from the fountAt the heart of time love of one for another.

We have played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the sameShy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-

Old love, but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you,The love of all man’s days both past and forever:

Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life,The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours-

And the songs of every poet past and forever.