so innocent and mysterious, so foolish and wise, so preposterous and lovable. It is this age's reversal that explains The Crescent Moon so far as the book needs anything to reveal its midday moonshine. Some of us may have expected more patent wonders, remembering those in the Indian story of the Jat and the Bania, where the Bania looks into the mouth of the mosquito that is going to bite him and sees there a palace of burning gold, and a lovely princess sitting at one of its many windows. With this idea we may have counted on a crescent moon of pure magic, and a moony world of arabesque extravagance; but in fact Rabindranath Tagore, like a true conjurer, works his enchantment with simple means: a little dust, a puddle of water, a flower, some ink and paper.
The poems in The Crescent Moon carry us very near this everyday Paradise, simply by showing a regard, at once joyous and tender, for the changing moods and wayward desires of a child. The book is delightful to us alike for the fantasy of its oriental background and for its writer's sympathy; every page of it gives us a picture touched in with the fond life-like detail of a child-lover.
