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by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941)
Translation by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941)

In desperate hope
Language: English  after the Bangla (Bengali) 
Our translations:  GER
In desperate hope I go and search for her 
in all the corners of my room; I find her not.

My house is small and what once has gone from it 
can never be regained.

But infinite is thy mansion, my lord, 
and seeking her I have to come to thy door.

I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky
and I lift my eager eyes to thy face.

I have come to the brink of eternity 
from which nothing can vanish --
no hope, no happiness, 
no vision of a face seen through tears.

Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean, 
plunge it into the deepest fullness. 
Let me for once feel 
that lost sweet touch in the allness of the universe.

Text Authorship:

  • by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941), appears in Gitanjali, no. 87, 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. 87 [text unavailable]
    • Go to the text page.

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

  • by Wendy Hiscocks (b. 1963), "In desperate hope", 1998 [ women's chorus a cappella ], from A Tagore Album, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

  • Also set in Dutch (Nederlands), a translation by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist ; composed by Jan Pouwels.
    • Go to the text. [Note: the text is not in the database yet.]
  • Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Marie Luise Gothein (1863 - 1931) , first published 1914 ; composed by Stefan Wolpe.
    • Go to the text.

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

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2009-11-13
Line count: 16
Word count: 125

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