Page:Kali the Mother.djvu/44

 The result is a collection of folk-songs, full of the sentiment of Kali-worship, left to the memories of his people. Many it is to be feared, remain about the villages of Bengal, unrecorded to this day. But they are so integral a part of the life that there is good reason to trust that they will never be lost.

In after days, Ram Prasad became famous. Drifting down the Ganges one summer day, his little boat encountered the royal barge of Surajah Dowlah, the brilliant young governor of Bengal, and he was ordered to come on board and sing. The poet tuned his vina, and racked his brain for songs in the grand old classic style, fine enough to suit the presence. But the Mohammedan would have none of them—"Sing me your own songs—About the Mother!" he commanded graciously, and his subject was only too glad to obey.

No flattery could touch a nature so unapproachable in its simplicity. For in these writings we have perhaps alone in literature, the