Rabindranāth's collection of poems Shesh saptak appeared on the poet's seventy-fourth birthday, 25 Vaishākh 1342 (8 May 1935). Anticipating the pre-planned date of publication, he writes in poem #43:

Rabindranath lived another six years after writing this poem. There was no slackening of his creative powers during this period. More flowers were added to the garland even after his death. The flowers are not all of the same colour, size, or scent. They do not even always match each other when viewed side by side.

Rabindranath's close associate W.W. Pearson tells an anecdote about Tagore and Gāndhi. He asked both of them the same two questions: what did they consider their greatest virtue and greatest vice? Gandhi returned an evasive answer. Tagore's was both pungent and profound: to both questions, he replied, ‘Inconsistency.’

This could not have been said in jest. It is neither possible nor desirable for a man who lived to be eighty, whose life testified to unmatched creativity, vast experience, and unending stimuli, to be entirely consistent. His views changed over time, as did his sense of values: that was only natural. But more than that, his actions and utterances sometimes seem truly inconsistent or even self-contradictory.

Rabindranath first went to England in 1878 in order to qualify for the Indian Civil Service like his elder brother Satyendran th or else to be a barrister.