My Dear, I was planning to PM you with this url:
http://wordsmith.org/awad/archives/0397, and tell you to scroll about three-quarters of the way down, until you came to Mon Mar 24. I thought you would enjoy that week's theme. But this prayer is so beautiful, I decided to post it for everyone's delectation.

"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."


--
This week's words are taken from _Geetanjali_ (Song Offering) a collection
of poems by Indian philosopher and poet Rabindranath Tagore. Originally
written in Bengali, the poems were translated into English by the poet
himself. He received the 1913 Nobel Prize in literature. -Anu

It is a MOST beautiful poem isn't it?!! I learnt it by rote some ten years back and, despite having the words branded in my mind, I get the goose bumps every single time that I read them again. A big warm hug to you Jackie from me, for this most unexpected moment of sheer bliss. Thank you.

Rabindranath Tagore rocks!

We were made to say this 'prayer' every morning in school, long before I ever contemplated its meaning. Reading it here, and now, gave me a very warm feeling indeed, along with a new respect for my school principal...

Reading it here, and now, gave me a very warm feeling indeed
I am glad, my dear; I thought it might be familiar to you, but I wasn't sure enough of my facts. Er--perhaps it was not intended to be a prayer? It felt like one, to me. As a matter of fact, I thought it was rather appropriate for MY country, at the moment.