Preface I have come to the conclusion, wrote Tagore, that a poet ought to be a poet and nothing else. Fortunately for us, his life and works were not restricted by that apparently self-denying ordinance. He was much else besides, because of his being a poet. In the pages that follow are collected a small. But perhaps not negligible, portion of his vast output. The range is remarkable, from rural India to Russia, from a school for children to world fellowship, from Sino-Japanese war to the crisis in civilization. A truly Renaissance mind, not unfamiliar with the ugly and the unideal, not without its flashes of heroism, as when he returned the Knighthood.

Polemics and apologia rarely outlive the author and the occasion of their birth. Some of Tagore's writings, may be much, have no doubt dated. But the central in-sights remain a challenge and an inspiration not only to Indians but to men of goodwill everywhere. The best of him will keep. Restricted by reasons of space, this anthology tries to give a taste of Tagore at his best, to con-vey something of the unity and the variety, the finer tone.

It is a mistake to think of him as one who charmed us solely with the consolations of easy poetry and .a liberal outlook, which we have outgrown. There was more in him than that. Even when absolute values are implied or accepted, civilization calls for a constant revision of goals. Creative even in his negations, Tagore calls us to this re-vision of goals.

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