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 on a London stage, my next neighbour, a stranger to me and a native of Bengal, asked me if I had read any of the other writings of the playwright? He went on to speak of these writings, verse and prose, with the enthusiasm of a disciple; in a way, indeed, to make one's ears tingle. His account had the effect of the tuning up of the fiddles before the actual music; or it was like that passage in the Vedic Hymn which speaks of the coming of the poet—the long-expected poet who has the gift of the supernal tongue. Within a week or two, one Sunday afternoon, my fellow-playgoer brought, according to promise, a volume of the new poetry in the original Bengali, along with some translations, and read them to us. None of us who listened to the recital could understand the liquid tongue in which the songs were written; but their rhythm was full of melody, and the English versions pointed to an imagination, innocent but rich in figurative life; while the reader's delight in them was infectious. Open belief in a poet is not often seen among us, and there was in this boyish tribute an ingenuous exuberant air which recalled the saying in the Upanishads: "If you were to tell this to a dry stick, branches and leaves would grow out of it."