The Marvelous

Rabindranath Tagore

Gitanjali 3

I know not how

The poem begins with unknowing. The speaker isn't studying the music or analyzing it—he's confessing that the song operates beyond the reach of his comprehension. Reverence starts where understanding ends.

I know not how thou singest, my master!
I ever listen in silent amazement.
The light of thy music illumines the world.

light of thy music

Tagore makes music visible. Not the sound of music, but its **light**—as if song were a lantern illuminating the whole world. Synesthesia turned into theology.

The life breath of thy music runs from sky to sky.

breaks through all stony obstacles

The stream metaphor transforms God's music into a geological force. It doesn't go around obstacles—it **breaks through** them, the way rivers carve canyons over millennia. Patient, unstoppable.

The holy stream of thy music breaks through all stony obstacles
and rushes on.
My heart longs to join in thy song,

vainly struggles for a voice

The tragedy of the devotee: the heart hears the divine music perfectly but the body cannot reproduce it. The longing to sing back is itself the prayer.

but vainly struggles for a voice.
I would speak, but speech breaks not into song,
and I cry out baffled.
Ah, thou hast made my heart captive
in the endless meshes of thy music, my master!
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Music as the Shape of God

Tagore never names what the "master" is singing, and that's the point. The content of the divine song doesn't matter—what matters is its effect: it illumines the world, it runs from sky to sky, it breaks through stone. The music is described entirely through what it does, never through what it says.

This is a radical theological move. Most devotional poetry tries to articulate what God wants, commands, or promises. Tagore says: God sings, and I can't even understand the song, let alone repeat it. The relationship isn't teacher-student or master-servant—it's musician and stunned listener.

The three images of music escalate in scale: light (fills a room), life breath (fills the sky), holy stream (reshapes the earth). Each one is bigger and more physical than the last. By the third, music has become a force of nature—water powerful enough to break rock.

The Beautiful Failure of Response

The second half of the poem is about the speaker's inability to sing back. "I would speak, but speech breaks not into song, and I cry out baffled." This is not a complaint—it's an ecstatic confession.

CONTEXT In Indian devotional tradition (*bhakti*), the devotee's inability to adequately praise God is itself a form of praise. The stammering, the tears, the baffled cry—these are understood as more authentic than polished hymns. Tagore inherits this tradition but strips it of ritual context. There's no temple here, no ceremony. Just a listener overwhelmed by a song.

The final image—the heart "captive in the endless meshes of thy music"—converts failure into intimacy. The speaker cannot sing, cannot speak, cannot even understand. But the net of music holds him anyway. Being caught is the relationship. The inability to respond *is* the response.