That Heaven of Freedom

(From Rabindranath Tagore)
 

Where no half-stifled fear the wind appals,

Where heads lift high with knowledge full and free,

Where world to world is not to fragments cut

In self-immurement by domestic walls ;

Where words gush out of truth in majesty,

Where tireless striving lifts from out the rut

Towards perfection : and where reason falls

Like a swift stream to a smooth sunlit sea,

And not lost in a dreary desert, bare and shut,

Barren as death, where no sweet  songster calls ;

Where into ever-widening thought and action bold

The mind by Thee in love is onward led –

Into that heaven of freedom, shackles shed,

O Father God, let now my land awake !

 

Weekly Times 25.5.62