Page:Rabindranath Tagore - A Biographical Study.djvu/119

 the new emotion of a race, in a mode that is very real, with all its ideality. Combine these two things, and you have solved what is one of the problems of the lyric poet who must use the large language of all poetry, yet adapt it with an inflexion of his own to the particular needs of his own time and his own temperament. In the second page of he gives us the key to his melody and to its control of the two elements when he makes his confession:

To England the great waves of poetry have often flowed from the regions of the sun. From Greece came an impulse that died down only to revive, and that went on for centuries. From Italy came a reinspiration that affected Chaucer, touched the Elizabethans, and helped to furnish Shelley with his vision of nature transcendent, fulfilled with southern light and sunshine. From Provence, again, came irresistible romance and lyric melody. And now, perhaps, it may prove