Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/717

 VI.] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 677 onomatapoetic words, each of which has - been chosen with singular care, the effect of the whole being such that it cannot be rendered in transla- tion. In the remaining portion of the piece, the poet strives more for an artistic effect of language than for a realistic description of the flood. The whole thing looks like a storm painted on a scene under a mellow light. We miss the actual cries, the wringings of the heart and the death-agonies consequent on the devastating catastrophe. The descriptions of horror grow almost charming, being set, as it were, to a musical air. The lines “ডুবে মরে মৃদঙ্গী মুদঙ্গ বুকে করি । কালোয়াত ভাসিন বীণার লউ ধরি ॥ and “কাঙ্গাল হইনু সবে বাঙ্গলায় এসে' show that the poet’s heart did not melt into pity at the sight of a disaster which had killed thousands of men, but that he could enliven its description by a poetic touch, and was even willing to enjoy the scene, maintaining a vein of light humour in his gay couplets. Poetry was now reduced to an art; it delight- Niceties of ed in niceties of sound. Bharata Chandra’s poems aos are untranslatable. Take awav the outer garb, and the picture that he draws loses all its attraction. His delicacy of colouring is perhaps peculiarly oriental. His finest things become poor in trans- lation. The whole may be pronounced ‘ words, words, words’ in the language of Hamlet; but, as a Bengali critic lately said, ‘Bharata Chandra’s poetry is the Taj of Agra made in Bengal,—not in marble but 1n words.’ There are critics who would deprecate this art in literature. In a language like Bengali which