Stanza 1 Summary

Lines 1-2

My song has put off her adornments.
She has no pride of dress and decoration. 

• There are quite a few interesting things happening in these first two lines of the poem. First of all, the speaker's song is personified. The speaker's song is spoken of as a "she." It's a girl-poem. 
• How do we know that? Well, even though the speaker refers to "Song VII" as a "song," it's also obviously a poem. Songs, after all, are a form of poetry. Like poetry, songs have rhythms that make our ears happy. (Check out "What's Up With the Title?" for more.)
• The speaker also personifies the poem by saying that she's "put off her adornments." In other words, she's taken off all her fancy things. We can imagine that she's getting into her sweatpants and sweatshirt (and don't we all like to do that at the end of a long day?). 
• The poem no longer has "pride of dress and decoration." Pride, of course, is a human quality, and so by speaking of the song as not having any pride the speaker continues to personify it. Not only that, but the speaker's words here also suggest that pride isn't necessarily a good thing. Pride can spill into vanity, after all, particularly if you're too hung up on appearances. 
• These references to the "adornments" and the "dress and decoration" of the poem are examples of metaphors.
• The speaker's evoking actual dress and jewelry here, but he is talking about literary "adornments." "[D]ress and decoration" are metaphors for complicated poetic language and fancy linguistic devices. 
• Just like a woman can put on her fancy clothes, so a poem can be written in a fancy way. A poem can use complicated vocabulary, for example, or express really complicated ideas. 
• Not this poem, though. She's not hung up on all that high-falutin' stuff.

Lines 3-5

Ornaments would mar our union;
they would come between thee and me;
Their jingling would drown thy whispers

• Here the speaker says that shiny, tinkly things would "mar our union." Whose union is he talking about, exactly? One possibility is that he's talking about a union with God. Tagore's poetry is known for its emphasis on the divine, and a lot of the poems in the collection of poetry in which this poem appears—Gitanjali or Song-Offerings—directly address God. So, when the speaker refers to a "union" between him and someone else here, it's a safe bet to say that this someone else is God. 
• The speaker says that "ornaments" (that is, literary ornaments, or fancy poetic language) would come between himself and God. 
• The speaker's description of his poem's ornaments as "jingling" is important, because it reminds us that this poem is also a song. "Jingling" sounds suggest music, so this word continues the association between the poem and music. 
• The speaker suggests that such literary ornaments would get between him and God because they would distract from the "whispers" that God is trying to communicate to him. These words also imply that too many worldly possessions ("ornaments") would come between himself and God. If we're distracted by what we own and what we wear, we won't have time to pay attention to God. 
• Notice also that there's a contrast in these lines between God's "whispers" and the "jingling" of poetic ornaments. Jingling is loud, while whispers are quiet. We have to strain our ears to hear God's message, and that message will sure be drowned out by the loud "jingling" of the poem's ornaments. 
• The speaker suggests that, in order to connect with God through poetry, we have to keep our poetry simple. It's not easy to hear what God is trying to say to us, and complicated poetic language will only distract us from his divine messages. 
• Even if we read this poem as addressed to a beloved (instead of God), what the speaker is saying here is that using complicated language in poetry doesn't connect us to those we love. Instead it distances us from them.