On the day when death will knock at thy door

by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941)

Translation by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941)

On the day when death will knock at thy...

Language: English after the Bangla (Bengali)

Available translation(s): GER

On the day when death will knock at thy door,
what wilt thou offer to him?

Oh, I will set before my guest the full vessel of my life;
I will never let him go with empty hands.

All the sweet vintage of all my autumn days and summer nights,
all the earnings and gleanings of my busy life,
will I place before him at the close of my days
when death will knock at my door.

About the headline (FAQ)

Authorship:

by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941), no title, appears in Gitanjali, no. 90, first published 1912 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Based on:

a text in Bangla (Bengali) by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941), no title, appears in গীতাঞ্জলি (Gitanjali), no. 90 [text unavailable]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Josef Alexander (1907 - 1992), "On the day", 1973 [ soprano, harpsichord, and percussion ], from Gitanjali, no. 9 [sung text not yet checked]
by John Alden Carpenter (1876 - 1951), "On the day when death will knock at thy door", published 1914 [ voice and piano ], from Gitanjali (Song Offerings), no. 2, New York, G. Schirmer [sung text checked 1 time]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

Also set in Finnish (Suomi), a translation by Helmi Krohn (1871 - 1967) ; composed by Erkki Gustaf Melartin.
Also set in French (Français), a translation by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist ; composed by Henri-Pierre Poupard, as Henri Sauguet.
Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Marie Luise Gothein (1863 - 1931) , first published 1914 ; composed by Stefan Wolpe.
Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Thomas Schubert (b. 1961) , copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission [an adaptation] ; composed by Thomas Schubert.
Also set in Swedish (Svenska), a translation by Nino (Hjalmar) Runeberg (1874 - 1934) ; composed by Erkki Gustaf Melartin.

Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

GER German (Deutsch) (Thomas Schubert) , copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission [an adaptation]

Researcher for this text: Geoffrey Wieting

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 8
Word count: 77