Quote of the day....

We, the famished, ragged ragamuffins of

the East are to win freedom for all humanity!

We have no word for 'nation' in our language.

-- Vishwa kavi Rabindranath Tagore.
Nobel laureate.
His reflections on pre-independence India's
 contribution to the first world war.

                  *      *      *      *      *

Author of the greatest anti-war poem in the

English language, Dulce et Decorum Est.

The great British poet Wilfred Owen

was to return to the front to give his life

in the futile First World War, he recited

Tagore's Parting Words to his mother

as his last goodbye.

When he was so tragically and pointlessly killed,

Owen's mother found Tagore's poem copied out

in her son's hand in his diary:


When I go from hence

let this be my parting word,

that what I have seen is unsurpassable.

I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus

that expands on the ocean of light,

and thus am I blessed

---let this be my parting word.

In this playhouse of infinite forms

I have had my play and

here have I caught sight of him that is formless.

My whole body and my limbs

have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch;

and if the end comes here, let it come

- let this be my parting word.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33317368