Rabindranath Tagore

Poems on Life

Poems on Life - meaning Summary

Life Earned by Giving

The poem argues that life’s true value comes from giving rather than possession. It contrasts fame’s posthumous immortality with a living immortality rooted in love. Human mistakes call for compassionate response to restore individuals into a larger harmony. The final image, of life as a child laughing while shaking a "rattle of death," suggests innocence and movement toward mortality without despair, emphasizing generosity and mercy as ways to live fully.

Read Complete Analyses

Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it. Let the dead have the immortality of fame, but the living the immortality of love. Life’s errors cry for the merciful beauty that can modulate their isolation into a harmony with the whole. Life, like a child, laughs, shaking its rattle of death as it runs.

default user
PoetryVerse just now

Feel free to be first to leave comment.

8/2200 - 0