Rabindranath Tagore: Nature’s Poet and Nobel Laureate
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
May 7, 1861
Dearest readers,
Today, we celebrate the birth of the illustrious Indian polymath and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
In 1913, he remarkably became both the first non-European and the first lyricist honored with the Nobel Prize in Literature—an accolade richly deserved for a man whose soul danced with nature’s grace.
Tagore’s words about the natural world sing with timeless wisdom:
On the butterfly, he mused,
“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”
Reflecting on flowers, he poignantly wrote,
“The greed for fruit misses the flower.”
“I have lost my dewdrop," cries the flower to the morning sky that lost all its stars.”
And in reverence to trees, his voice rises with quiet grandeur:
“Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.”
“The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.”
“I asked the tree: tell me about God.
Then it bloomed.”
In Tagore’s poetic eyes, nature is not merely a backdrop but a profound teacher, reminding us of life’s fleeting beauty, selfless hope, and sacred mystery.
