BOLPUR, 16th Jaistha (May) 1892. No church tower clock chimes here, and there being no other human habitation near by, complete silence falls with the evening, as soon as the birds have ceased their song. There is not much difference between early night and midnight. A sleepless night in Calcutta flows like a huge, slow river of darkness; one can count the varied sounds of its passing, lying on ones back in bed. But here the night is like a vast, still lake, placidly reposing, with no sign of movement. And as I tossed from side to side last night I felt enveloped within a dense stagnation. This morning I left my bed a little later than usual and, coming downstairs to my room, leant back on a bolster, one leg resting over the other knee. There, with a slate on my chest, I began to write a poem to the accompaniment of the morning breeze and the singing birds. I was getting along splendidly—a smile playing over my lips, my eyes half closed, my head swaying to the rhythm, the thing I hummed gradually taking shape—when the post arrived. There was a letter, the last number of the Sadhana Magazine, one of the Monist, and some proof-sheets. I read the letter, raced my eyes over the uncut pages of the Sadhana, and then again fell to nodding and humming through my poem. I did not do another thing till I had finished it. I wonder why the writing of pages of prose does not give one anything like the joy of completing a single poem. Ones emotions take on such perfection of form in a poem; they can, as it were, be taken up by the fingers. But prose is like a sackful of loose material, heavy and unwieldy, incapable of being lifted as you please. If I could finish writing one poem a day, my life would pass in a kind of joy; but though I have been busy tending poetry for many a year it has not been tamed yet, and is not the kind of winged steed to allow me to bridle it whenever I like! The joy of art is in freedom to take a distant flight as fancy will; then, even after return within the prison-world, an echo lingers in the ear, an exaltation in the mind. Short poems keep coming to me unsought, and so prevent my getting on with the play. Had it not been for these, I could have let in ideas for two or three plays which have been knocking at the door. I am afraid I must wait for the cold weather. All my plays except Chitra were written in the winter. In that season lyrical fervour is apt to grow cold, and one gets the leisure to write drama. - Glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 23:36:14 +0000
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