A BENGALI POET.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1551, 21 September 1912, Page 11

A BENGALI POET.

AND WHAT IS SAID OP HIM, "The ooming to England of the Indian poot and dramatist Eabindra Nath Tagore has aroused a deeper and wider interest amongst thoughtful people here than tho appearance of any other visitor from the East in our generation, states a writer in tlie "Manchester Guardian." At a banquet given to him by English artists and writers, Messrs. Herbert Trench, It. B. Ciiuninghanio Graham, H. W. Ncvinson, H. G. Wells, Cecil Sharp, and W. B: Yeats were among those who honoured Mr. Tagore. Mr. Yeats, in proposing the toast of "Our Guest," said:— "To take part in honouring Mr. Eabindra Nath Tagore is one of the great events of my artistic lifo. I have been carrying about with me a book of translations into English prose of one hundred of his Bengali lyrics, written within the last ten years. I know of no man in my time who has done anything in the English language to equal these lyrics. Even aa I read them m this literal prose translation they aro as exquisite in style as in thought. Tho stylo was familiar in Europe several hundred years ago. Mr. Rabindra Nath Tagore is also- a great musician; he sets, his poems to music; then ho teaches poem and music to sonio one, and so together they go from mouth to mouth, sung by his people, verj much as poetry was sung in Europe tnree or 'our centuries ago. In all his poems there is one single theme—the love of God. When I tried to find anything Western which I might compare with the work of Mr. Tagorel thought of Tho Imitation of Chrisf by Thomas a Kempis. It is like, yet.- between the work of the two men there is a whole world of difference. Thomas a Kempis was obsessed by the 'thought-of- sin; he wrote of it in terrible imagery. Mr. Tagore has as little thought of sin as a. child playing with a top. In Thomas a Kempis there 'is no place for tho love of visible nature; int--his great austere nature such a love did not enter. But Mr. Tagore loves niituvu; his poems are full .of. the most neaiitiful touches showing his keen observation. (ud deep love." . ■ Mr. Teats read some of Mr. Tagore'B own English prose translations if bis lyrics, one of which,is as' folio,vi;"In tho deep shadows of the rainy July,

with secret steps, thou walkest, silent as night, eluding all watchers. "To-day the morning , . has closed its eyes, heedless of the insistent tfalls of the jlosd east wind;i'and i 'over.'.;the;everf wake* ful bine sky a thick veil'has been, drawn. ' "The woodlands have hushed their songs .and doors are all'shut at every house. Thpu art the 'solitary ■wayfarer in this deserted street. Oh, my only friend,' my best beloved, the gates are open in my house —do not pass by like a dream."