draw thee to him, and make thee his own. This illusion will not hold thee in thraldom for ever."
If The Gardener is the song-book of youth and the romance of the young lover who is satisfied with a flower for itself, or for its token of love's happiness, to be realised on earth in a day or night, Gitanjali is the book of the old lover who is in love with heavenly desire. He cannot be satisfied, but must always wish to transcend life and sensation through death, and attain not Nirvana in the sense of extinction, but Brahma Vihara, the joy eternal, the realisation of love in its last abode:
Thou art the sky, and thou art the nest as well. Oh, thou beautiful, there in the nest it is thy love that encloses the soul with colours and sounds and odours.
There comes the morning with the golden basket in her right hand, bearing the wreath of beauty, silently to crown the earth.
And there comes the evening over the lonely meadows deserted by herds, through trackless paths, carrying cool draughts of peace in her golden pitcher from the western ocean of rest.
But there, where spreads the infinite sky for the soul to take her flight in, reigns the stainless white radiance. There is no day nor night, nor form, nor colour, and never never a word.
Those who have heard any of these songs sung to their original tunes, or ragas will, as has
