Page:The Bengali Book of English Verse.djvu/25

Rh did not seek inspiration more assiduously in the romantic history of India. To the year 1881 belongs the work of the Maharajah Sir Jotindra Mohan Tagore whose Flights of Fancy may still be read with pleasure. This is a slight volume of occasional verse dealing with a variety of pleasing topics, and exhibiting a cultivated command of English metre. Of the writers of this time the most voluminous was Nobo Kissen Ghose who wrote under the pseudonym of Ram Sharma. His verse is scattered throughout a number of magazines that appeared in Calcutta between the years 1878 and 1901. In 1886 he published his blank verse poem, The Last Day, in which are embodied interesting portraits of such outstanding men as David Hare, Rammohan Roy, Lord Canning, and Dr. Duff. His occasional poems are distinguished by the vigour of their expression and the independence of their author's mind. He dealt frequently with social and political themes; and his outspokenness was greatly emphasised by the refinement and energy of his language. Ram Sharma was born in the year of Queen Victoria's accession, and died in 1918. His long career is a link with the past. While he was educated in the Oriental Seminary under Captain Francis Palmer, and may have missed the influence of Richardson and the Hindu College, he belongs to the period that includes the work of the ten poets already named.

It may well be asked what is the value of the poetry produced by these writers. That they were devoted disciples of the art of letters is clear enough; but more than disciples they were not. To the student of Indian educational history their work must be of abiding interest; but in the larger world of literature, it can hold no distinctive place. Such poetry as they produced was Indian only in so far as it