Glimpses of Bengal — Shazadpur
_7th July_ 1893. The flow of village life is not too rapid, neither is it stagnant.
Work and rest go together, hand in hand.
The ferry crosses to and fro, the passers-by with umbrellas up wend their way along the tow-path, women are washing rice on the split-bamboo trays which they dip in the water, the ryots are coming to the market with bundles of jute on their heads.
Two men are chopping away at a log of wood with regular, ringing blows.
The village carpenter is repairing an upturned dinghy under a big _aswatha_ tree.
A mongrel dog is prowling aimlessly along the canal bank.
Some cows are lying there chewing the cud, after a huge meal off the luxuriant grass, lazily moving their ears backwards and forwards, flicking off flies with their tails, and occasionally giving an impatient toss of their heads when the crows perched on their backs take too much of a liberty.
The monotonous blows of woodcutter's axe or carpenter's mallet, the splashing of oars, the merry voices of the naked little children at play, the plaintive tune of the ryot's song, the more dominant creaking of the turning oil-mill, all these sounds of activity do not seem out of harmony with murmuring leaves and singing birds, and all combine like moving strains of some grand dream-orchestra, rendering a composition of immense though restrained pathos.
SHAZADPUR,
_10th July 1893. _ All I have to say about the discussion that is going on over "silent poets" is that, though the strength of feeling may be the same in those who are silent as in those who are vocal, that has nothing to do with poetry.
Poetry is not a matter of feeling, it is the creation of form.
Ideas take shape by some hidden, subtle skill at work within the poet.
This creative power is the origin of poetry.
Perceptions, feelings, or language, are only raw material.
One may be gifted with feeling, a second with language, a third with both; but he who has as well a creative genius, alone is a poet.
PATISAR,
_13th August 1893. _
