Rabindranath Tagore, author of The Gardener, was an Indian poet and the first poet of any nationality ever to win the Nobel Laureate for Literature, awarded to him in 1913. He captivated India and the entire western world with the beauty of the lyrics in his poetry.

His talent and undeniably beautiful lyrical poetic style are especially evident in this poem, written in prose in 85 verses and entitled The Gardener. Also known as The Book of Love, the poem uniquely expresses the ideas of love and the unity of humanity with universe. This edition of the poem contains a biographical introduction on Tagore and interpretive commentary on the symbolism in the poem.

In the verses of this poem, Tagore transfers his focus on romantic love-to-love in general, toward all of humanity, life, and the world. The two birds and the bird cage are the predominant images in this poem. The bird cage symbolizes the way in which people remove themselves from the world around them, fearing the joy of freedom that lies beyond their own limited experience, while the two birds show how love can be expressed between romantic partners who have very different attitudes about life and the world around them.

By presenting so many significant ideas in just lyrical prose, Tagore is often considered to be the greatest poet of late European symbolism, even though he was Indian by birth.