find it in certain Gaelic songs, and here and there in a snatch of Welsh folk-song. But Indian music is both more independent and less obvious than ours. It is as if one heard the wind sighing and the stream running and occasionally the storm shrieking—for the music can be harsh and strident, too—behind the words. As for Rabindranath's own music, Mr. Fox Strangways has told us that to hear him sing his songs is to realise the music in a way that a foreigner is very seldom able to do. "The notes of the song are no longer their mere selves, but the vehicle of a personality, and as such they go behind this or that system of music to that beauty of sound which all systems put out their hands to seize. These melodies are such as would have satisfied Plato." And W. B. Yeats, envying the conditions which could foster such art, says: "Rabindranath Tagore writes music for his words, and one understands that he is so abundant, so spontaneous, so daring in his passion, so full of surprise, because he is doing something which never seems strange, unnatural, or in need of defence."
He writes, in fact, with faith in his audience and in its cordial delight in what he sings; his
