The Trumpet represents India's contribution, through Tagore, to the Empire's war poetry. The poem is a witness to his profound perturbation of spirit over the Empire's death-grapple with the organised militarism of the Central Powers. His loyalty reflects the loyalty of enlightened India to the best interests of an Empire which, with all its failings, rests primarily on moral suasion rather than on brute force. We cannot resist quoting at least one line from The Trumpet : ff . . . For to-night thy trumpet shall be sounded. From thee I had asked peace, only to find shame.
Now I stand before thee, help me to don my armour, Let hard blows of trouble strike fire into my life, Let my heart beat in pain—beating the drum of thy victory. My hands shall be utterly emptied to take up thy trumpet." But in spite of his war poems, Sir Rabindra Nath Tagore is an uncompromising lover of Peace and concord among the Nations. One of his utter ances made in Japan is " that the vital ambition of all militarist civilisations is to obtain an exclusive monopoly of the Devil ! " He regrets that in the twentieth century " the unspeakable filth of the cen turies is being churned up " in direct violation of the Sermon on the Mount, as Christian nations are flying at each other's throats. He warns Japan against accepting European " equality " on a military basis.
But Tagore is at his best, both in crystallising his philosophy of war and in expressing India's sense of loyalty, in his latest war poem, The Oarsmen.
We reproduce the poem here, with the exception of the first stanza.
" Do you hear the roar of death through the listening hush of distance, And there rings the Captain's voice in the dark, ' Come, sailors, for the time in the haven is over ! ' • Whom do you blame, brothers ? Bow your heads down ! The sin has been yours and ours, The heat growing in the heart of God for ages— The cowardice of the weak, the arrogance of tke strong, the greed of fat prosperity, the rancour of the deprived, pride of race and insult to man— Has burst God's peace raging in storm. . . .
Stop your bluster of abuse and self- praise, my friends, And with the calm of silent prayer on your brows sail forward to the shore of the new world. . . .
We do not fear you, 0 monster : for we have lived every moment of our life by conquering you, And we died with the faith that Peace is true and Good is true, and true is the eternal One ! If the deathless dwell not in the heart of Death, if glad wisdom bloom not bursting the sheath of sorrow, If sin do not die of its own revealment, if pride break not under its load of decorations, Then whence comes the hope that drives these men from their homes like stars rushing to their death in the morning light ? Shall the value of the martyrs' blood and the mothers' tears be utterly lost in the dust of the earth, not buying Heaven with their price ? And when Man bursts his mortal bounds, is not the Boundless revealed in that moment ? " One word more about Tagore's poetry. He is the
first Indian poet that introduces a democratic concep tion of God in religious verse. It is no doubt true that the entire Hindu philosophy of God as an all pervasive Reality, of which individuals are so many isolated self-expressions, is in its higher phases democratic, in the sense that in its most sublime developments at least, it leaves little scope for crouching and cringing before a localised divinity, seated in aristocratic detachment from human affairs. But students of Indian religious experience also know that sublime intellectual abstractions seldom afford a basis for that passionate devotion to an object of worship which serves as a guide through the experiences of life. In India, though Reason has soared above all limitations and attributes that gather round human personality, in its definition of Divine Essence denying to It even such an important function as character, yet the profound religious instincts of the people have led them to bestow passionate worship on some mani festations of Brahma, the Infinite, the Actionless, the Eternal One, the One without a second, the pure Being.
In the Worship of Ishwara, then, devotees have not refrained from showing abject humility, have used most slighting and even degrading epithets about themselves in their desire to exalt the Object of Worship, the personal God which claims and purifies allegiance.
But Tagore's personal God is described as " Brother," " Friend," even though He is " Lord of my life " and " My King." Compare his beautiful hymn : " Day after day, 0 Lord of my life I shall stand before Thee, face to face," etc.