The+Sunset+of+the+Century

=By Rabindranath Tagore =

The last sun of the century sets amidst the blood-red clouds of the West and the whirlwind of hatred.  The naked passion of self-love of Nations, in its drunken delirium of greed, is  dancing to the clash of steel and the howling verses of vengeance.  The hungry self of the Nation shall burst in a violence of fury from its own shameless feeding.  For it has made the world its food,  And licking it, crunching it, and swallowing it in big morsels,  It swells and swells  Till in the midst of its unholy feast descends the sudden heaven piercing its  heart of grossness.

The crimson glow of light on the horizon is not the light of thy dawn of peace,  my Motherland.  It is the glimmer of the funeral pyre burning to ashes the vast flesh, - the self-love of the Nation, - dead under its own excess.  Thy morning waits behind the patient dark of the East,  Meek and silent.

Keep watch, India. <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Bring your offerings of worship for that sacred sunrise. <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Let the first hymn of its welcome sound in your voice, and sing, <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">'Come, Peace, thou daughter of God's own great suffering. <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Come with thy treasure of contentment, the sword of fortitude, <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">And meekness crowning thy forehead.' <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Be not ashamed, my brothers, to stand before the proud and the powerful <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">With your white robe of simpleness. <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Let your crown be of humility, your freedom the freedom of the soul. <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Build God's throne daily upon the ample bareness of your poverty <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">And know that what is huge is not great and pride is not everlasting.

<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Written on the last day of the 19th century (1899).