Bird Collection (Guomai Classic)

The poet Feng Tang wrote the translation and used sophisticated writing skills to create the most concise Chinese translation, finding the appropriate artistic conception and rhythm for "The Collection of Birds". During World War I in 1916, Rabindranath Tagore, who became internationally famous after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, visited Japan. He was deeply attracted by the life and scenery there, and came into contact with haiku, a Japanese classical short poem. Those rare short poems may have had an impact on him. At the request of young people, he wrote some words on their fans or signature books. These scattered words or short essays were later compiled into "The Collection of Birds" and published. "The Birds" is a collection of philosophical aphorisms in English. It was first published in 1916 and contains 326 poems, including English translations of Rabindranath Tagore's Bengali short poems, as well as impromptu English poems written during his visit to Japan. The poems in "Birds" are extremely concise and short, describing mostly small and simple things such as flowers, trees, wind, rain, thunder and lightning, sun, moon and stars, but these constitute the most important part of life. The delicate observation and praise of these things contain Tagore's philosophical thinking and fully demonstrate the poet's love for nature and life.