The theme and subject matter of Tagore's poetry can be summed up within four letter “LOVE”: that is, love for humanity (both man and woman), love for divinity (God and His Kingdom), and love for Nature. In the words of Roy, “Tagore is a profound philosopher, a spiritual and patriotic leader, and historical investigator, a singer and composer. He is above all the poet - the poet of love. Love flows from his heart, mind and soul in continuous stream assuming all different forms in its windings from finite into infinite. He interprets love in all its multiform expressions the love of mother, of son, of husband, wife, lover of beloved and of friend. Each and every one of these he portrays with his characteristic softness of touch that recalls the Theophile Gautier and with the exquisite felicity of Shelley and Keats.”
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| R.N. Tagore As A Poet of Love |
His poetry expresses his ardent love for someone whose identity remains a mystery. Was the person Nalini, the Maharastrian girl, with whom as some say, he fell in love? Or was she Kadambari, his sister in - law whom he adored and who inspired him to write? The Gardener, Fruit - Gathering and Lover's Gift give expression to his feelings of love for the mortal beloved whereas Gitanjali is an expression of his love for the immortal.
“There is positively someone that makes him cry out:
I have clasped both hands in mine, my hungry
gaze is fixed on that pair of eyes, and I am seeking
where are you, where are you?”
There are, indeed, many lines in his poetry which show him as a masculine lover. In this role he wants to hold the little fists of his beloved and put “flower chains” on them. He asks her to come with quick steps over the green; her hair need not be braided nor the ribbons on her bodice be fastened. Her blue mantle will be left on the shore and the blue water will cover her and hide her. The waves will rise and stand tip - toe to kiss her neck and whisper in her ears. It is the full - moon night of April and shadows are pale in the courtyard. The sky overhead is bright and the love between her and him is simple as a song. Her veil of saffron colour makes his eyes drunk. He stands behind the trees whenever she and her sister go to fetch water. They whisper and smile when they reach the spot where he is hiding. He asks her to give him leave to sit by her side and bid his lips to do the work that can be done in silence and in the dim light of stars. He feels lost in her spells.
His treatment of love is without pangs, without prickings, without frustrations and without exaggerated sighs. It is natural and simple; it is the product of Indian culture: It knows its limits; it does not go beyond an acceptable line. He fashions his beloved as a shy woman who braids her hair, puts on a green mantle and goes alone to her love - tryst. On the way the birds do not sing, the wind stirs not, and the street is utterly silent. Only the sound of her anklets and steps is heard. The jewel on her breast shines and gives light and she does not know how to hide it. The night is dark and the wind is sighing through the leaves. She will clasp and embrace him. It is only then she will be able to know if her lips are like the opening bud of the finest love, whether the memories of vanished months of May linger in her limbs.
In another picture, she milked the cow with hands as tender and fresh as butter. He stood with his empty can. He did not move near her. He went on observing her. Yet she asked him to go away. He held her hands and brought his face near hers. What a shame, she said. His lips touched her cheeks but she trembled and said that he dared too much. He puts a flower in her hair and she remarked that it was useless. He took the garland back and went away. How natural, how sweet and how touching are his descriptions of love and lovers! In the fourth song of Lover's Gift, Tagore writes:
“She is near to my heart as the meadow flower to the earth; she
is sweet to me as sleep is to tired limbs.
My love for her is my life flowing in its fullness, like a river
in autumn flood, running with serene abandonment.
My songs are one with my love, like the murmur of a stream,
that sings with all its waves and currents.”
For the sake of his beloved the poet is ready to abandon numerous kingdoms:
“I would ask for still more, if I had the sky with all its stars and the world with its endless riches; but I would be content with the smallest corner of this earth if only she were mine.” (Lover’s Gift,5)
The poet cannot row alone. However, if his beloved be with him he shall gently row her by the shelter of the shore, where the dark water in ripples is like a dream, where the dove is cooing from the drooping branches. His beloved is slim and swaying; there is a twinkling smile in the edge of her eyes, and her rope is coloured like the rain - cloud. She is shy and silent; she is honey. The poet has been waiting for her for a very long time:
“From the beginning of time
I have waited for you, looking at the numberless travellers.
Today, as I behold your face, instantly the joy love bursts
through the pangs of separation
You I have loved in a hundred forms every age and all
my past lives;
You incarnate eternal memories, you and I have played
within a million lovers; and now within a single
love mingle the memories of all other passions, and
all the joys and sorrows of the world.”
The poet cannot forget his beloved. Her memories go on haunting him. He recalls the evenings ‘she had watched the moon’, ‘her swimming limbs and wet feet’, ‘the spot by the village road, near the pool with its landing stairs, where dwelt she whom I love.’
Tagore's Gardener is a feast of love poetry. Dr. Iyengar says “All the make - belief and love play that lovers feed on, all the agony and hopelessness, all the ecstasy and fulfilment of lovers’ lives, all is woven here into a garland of memorable song.” (Indian Writing in English).
The following lines may be a summary of his treatment of and approach to love:
“Someone has secretly left in my hand a flower of love.
Someone has stolen my heart and scattered it abroad in the sky.
I know not if I have found him or I am seeking him
everywhere, if it is a pang of bliss or of pain.” (Crossing, 33)
That is to say, that Tagore did not find human love enduring or satisfying. He turned his face away from it and cut out a different path for himself. In “the poet's Religion”, he says: “Whenever our heart touches the One, in the small or the big, it finds the touch of the infinite.” In the introduction to his ‘Creative Unity’ he writes: “This one in me not only seeks unity in knowledge for its understanding and creates images of unity for its delight; it also seeks union in love for its fulfilment. It seeks itself others....... In love we find a joy which is ultimate because it is the ultimate truth. Therefore it is said in the Upanishads that the advaitam is anandam, — “the One is Infinite ": that the advaitam is anandam'- “the One is Love.”
His love for God is best expressed in the Crossing and Gitanjali. In Crossing (Song 38), he writes:
“My heart bends in worship like a dew laden flower, and
I feel the flood of my life rushing to the endless.”
And then in Song 39 he writes:
“My guest has come to my house for long, my
doors were locked, my windows barred;
I thought my night would he lonely.
When I opened my eyes I found
the darkness had vanished.
I rose up and ran and saw the bolts off my gates all
broken, and through the open door your wind and light waved their banner.
When I was a prisoner in my own house, and the doors
were shut, my heart ever planned to escape and to wander.
Now at my broken gate, I sit still and wait for your coming
You keep me bound by my freedom.”
Tagore cannot separate Nature from God because to him Prakrit and Purush are the two aspects of God.