place among the regenerative tongues of the world. As for its rhythmic life, though I cannot quote instances in the original of its force, there are many songs to be had whose power of melody triumphs even over imperfect translation into English. Take that one song of Govinda Das in which Radha says, "Let my spirit be turned into a summer breeze for the fan with which Krishna cools himself. Whenever he moves, like a new-born cloud, may I become the sky behind him, to form the pale background of his heavenly form."
The Bengali idiom needs to be traced in every form it assumes—religious, literary, or popular. Take a leaf of the book of the sage, Lomasa. One day the son of the god Indra came to him and said that he wanted to build him a hut to shelter him. "No need of that," said he, "since life is so short." "How long then will you live?" the other asked; and he replied, "The fall of every one of my hairs will take the whole cycle of an Indra's reign. When all my hair is fallen, my death will surely come." The figurative note is heard again in a song of Rasu's which the villagers sing, in which he says, "Let your mind be the bird Chakora, and cry for a drop
