If one were to prophesy which type of Sir Rabindranath Tagore’s writings will survive among many peoples, the chances are in favor of his mystical prose-poems and his national songs. The latter have kept alive the love of home-country and faith in India. They are sung by boatmen on the Ganges, by the peasants in the fields, by students and groups at all kinds of festivals and conferences. These songs are of two kinds; one is a wistful idealization of the “Motherland,” with graphic pictures of scenery, homes, and religion; the second type is the “Song of Consecration,” of sacrifice and valor, exampled in “Follow the Gleam,” to which many young Nationalists have marched and died. Bitterness is absent from nearly every line by this poet-patriot; there is spiritual excitation, strong appeal to love of home and broader idealism. It has been said that contradiction is evident between some of these national songs and the broad humanism of many other writings, notably those in the _Gitanjali_. Those who know the man personally, and who are familiar with the tenets of Hindu philosophy which he embodies, as well as the spiritual ideals of the Upanishads, do not find it difficult to reconcile the two creeds, as he has united them in his “Ode to the Earth” and some of the essays in _Sadhana_. While it is gratifying to note that Rabindranath Tagore, as prize winner, found incentive to write more idealistic literature, yet it is evident that he never has surpassed the earlier books of distinctive quality, books that maintained the classic traditions of his native literature but gave them new form and significance, as _The Gardener_, _The Post Office_, _King of the Dark Chamber_, _Gitanjali_, and _The Elder Sister_. When he was in the United States he read, at colleges and other places, many passages from _The Gardener_ and _Gitanjali_. The two books have similar tone and melody; both are difficult to translate into adequate English because much of the mysticism is lost in concrete words--the same is true of his plays when they are staged without sustaining the “illusion” of the Oriental atmosphere. In native language the rhythm and music surpass and interpret the words; the swaying movement accompanies many odes and invocations. A song that may be chanted with the music of the flute, and thus appreciated, is one of the mystical lyrics beginning: I am restless, I am athirst for far-away things, My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirts of the dim distance. O Great Beyond, O the keen call of my flute! I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings, that I am bound in this spot, evermore.[100]