“The Furthest Distance In The World” – a poem by Rabindranath Tagore
The furthest distance in the world
Is not between life and death
But when I stand in front of you
Yet you don’t know that I love you
The furthest distance in the world
Is not when I stand in front of you
Yet you can’t see my love
But when undoubtedly knowing the love from both
Yet cannot be together
The furthest distance in the world
Is not being apart while being in love
But when plainly cannot resist the yearning
Yet pretending you have never been in my heart
The furthest distance in the world
Is not but using one’s indifferent heart
To dig an uncrossible river
For the one who loves you
The writer of this poem was Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), a Bengali poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright who reshaped Bengali literature and music. He was the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913). I confess that I had never heard of this poem – or even of Tagore – until I was introduced to it recently by a dear Chinese friend.
February 16th, 2014 at 12:28 am
This is not from Tagore, it was at first written by a Chinese female novelist Xiaoxian Zhang, in one of her stories. One famous Chinese magazine published it as Tagora’s work by mistake. It is also not a very good translation.