Emily Davidow

April is here, the thyme is short, and Google Book Search is awesome! I am loving the ability to download full PDFs of books in the public domain (like The Gardener collection of poems by Rabindranath Tagore), navigate around the sections, search and see results highlighted within the text and purchase various editions.

I’ve also been enjoying Amazon’s “search inside” to find information and exactly the passage I want, but their site doesn’t allow me to link directly to that page or highlight the passages within the book.

The ability to access from anywhere (online), search and annotate is so compelling I would pay a premium to get access to a full digital networked version when I buy a current printed book. For some books, I’d prefer just the digital version, but for books I want to read in transit or cook with in the kitchen, paper’s still preferable.

The Gardener
by Rabindranath Tagore

46
You left me and went on your way.
I thought I should mourn for you and set your solitary image in my heart wrought in a golden song.
But ah, my evil fortune, time is short.

Youth wanes year after year; the spring days are fugitive; the frail flowers die for nothing, and the wise man warns me that life is but a dew drop on the lotus leaf.
Should I neglect all this to gaze after one who has turned her back on me?
That would be rude and foolish, for time is short.

Then, come my rainy nights with pattering feet; smile, my golden autumn, come, careless April, scattering your kisses abroad.
You come, and you, and you also!
My loves, you know we are mortals.
Is it wise to break one’s heart for the one who takes her heart away? For time is short.

It is sweet to sit in a corner to muse and write in rhymes that you are all my world.
It is heroic to hug one’s sorrow and determine not to be consoled.
But a fresh face peeps across my door and raises its eyes to my eyes.
I cannot but wipe away my tears and change the tune of my song.
For time is short.

There’s a version of this poem read to music by Liev Schreiber on a soothing CD filled with Tagore poems accompanied by music that has a name so cheesy I’m almost embarrassed to recommend it: “A Gift of Love II: Oceans of Ecstasy.” There, I did it. (mp3 song preview)