Indian Writer Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

An early winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, Rabindranath Tagore is almost forgotten today. How is that so? He was a prolific writer of poetry, prose, plays, novels, and songs. He was offered a knighthood by the British, but turned it down. He did not live to see the creation of a free India, but he led a rich and full life. Here is a short excerpt from his poetry:

The Gardener 85

Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of 
     gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.

From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an
     hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred years.