A friend gave me a copy of this book when I was entering the India X Peace Corps training project in 1964. "To be read in times of stress, but also happiness," it says inside the flyleaf. That just says it all. You don't need to think you enjoy poetry to treasure this book. Tagore captures moment after moment of the human experience, pierces each with an insight of his own and shares it with the reader. In a sense it bears a similarity to those little books of daily prayers or 'thoughts for the day' people used to hand you when they came to the door uninvited to explain to you what you should believe to mold yourself to a nearer model of what they, themselves believed. But it's a lot more than that. Tagore isn't pushy. He soaks in to your conciousness the way water enters a sponge, and he stays there.

I think a copy of this book ought to be by the bedside in every home in America to be read during those times when the weight of our submersion in this reality seems too heavy to bear, or when the joys lift us too high.

This book speaks directly to the soul. Its poems are concise yet beautifully eloquent. When I read them, I am re-awakened to an inner knowing of beauty and love and creative spirit. I am also reminded of the timelessness and constancy of truth. "Fireflies" is a book to return to again and again.