Stray Birds

Preface Stray Birds, consisting of epigrams and short verses, has two sources. The first source is Kanika (literally, fragments) published in 1899. Most of the verses included in this slender work are epigrammatic in nature and didactic in tone. And all of them can be directly linked with the epigrammatic and didactic traditions of Sanskrit and also of Persian poetry prevalent in nineteenth-century Bengali literature.

The second source is more interesting. In 1926, Tagore published a collection of short verses under the title Lekhan. It had two prefaces, one in English and the other in Bengali; and most of the poems included here had two versions, Bengali and English. We have no clue to suggest whether the English version preceded the Bengali or vice versa. Tagore wrote in the Preface: "The lines in the following pages had their origin in China and Japan where the author was asked for his writings on fans or pieces of silk.'

**Contents and Sample Pages**