On the Nature of Love
2 Apr 2013
One of my favorite poems :) Written by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941) who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

The night is black and the forest has no end;
a million people thread it in a million ways.

We have trysts to keep in the darkness, but where
or with whom - of that we are unaware.

But we have this faith - that a lifetime's bliss
will appear any minute, with a smile upon its lips.

Scents, touches, sounds, snatches of songs
brush us, pass us, give us delightful shocks.

Then peradventure there's a flash of lightning:
whomever I see that instant I fall in love with.

I call that person and cry: `This life is blest!
for your sake such miles have I traversed!'

All those others who came close and moved off
in the darkness - I don't know if they exist or not.

Interpretation

A beautiful interpretation of this poem is here. Copied below:

This poem is about the quest for a life partner every individual goes through in his or her life. The curiosity to know the Indian perspective on love first induced me to reading this poem. And I must say, till today, this is one of my favorite poems. What I really like about the poem is that it metaphorically portrays the reason for living through the eyes of a romantic.

The speaker of the poem is the poet himself. The subject is the physical search for a life partner or a companion - or, on a deeper level, the search for a 'soulmate', the main theme being that the choice of a life partner is predestined. Examining the imagery, we see how Tagore uses the vehicle, a physical search, to represent the tenor, an emotional search. The search through a forest represents the search for true love; the lightning represents destiny, which the poem sees as the final end of the search ("whomever I see that moment, I fall in love with").

The internal structure of the poem is chronological. The lines 1-4 gives the setting, the lines 5-11 tells us why that setting was chosen and lines 12-14 explain to us the aftermath of the occurrence of the search. The external choice is free verse, but the poem is in a logical and chronological sequence. The choice of free verse is appropriate since the search for true love is not confined to a set of rules. The logical chronological sequence of the lines portrays the reasoning sequence of the mind. As time passes and as our interactions with others increase, our criteria for true love are refined.

In synopsis, the poem says that life is mysterious and that the quest for a soulmate seems to be never-ending. The millions of people, living on the face of the earth, search for their soulmates in a million different ways. There is interaction between the various travelers along their journey of life. The meetings take place with the fervent wish that one of them will lead to a soulmate. The driving force, for pursuing the search, is the belief that it would bring eternal happiness on its completion.

Other compositions that describe nascent love: Pyar Hua Chupke Se (1993, 1942 A Love Story) — That's Amore (1953, Dean Martin) — Chhoo Kar Mere Man Ko (1981, Yaarana) — Dil Ki Nazar Se (1959, Anaadi).

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