Tagore's Letters

Letter to William Winstanley Pearson (11 October, 1915)

A few nights ago I dreamt that I met you somewhere in some battlefield. You were standing on high land with a soldier by your side. Your face was deathly pale, full of profoundest sorrow. I did not know the reason but it seemed to me quite natural. I raised my hand to touch you but I found that you were wounded in your right arm.—I said to myself that death had pierced his soul and a prolonged and loud wail came from my heart. It was an intense suffering for me—I suppose it was your pain which was transferred to my heart.

Letter from Susan Owen—mother of Wilfred Owen, to Rabindranath Tagore

It is nearly two years ago that my dear eldest son went to the war for the last time and the day he said goodbye to him—we were looking together across the sun-glorified sea—looking towards France, with breaking hearts—when he, my poet-son, said those wonderful words of yours—beginning at “When I go from hence, let my parting word” [opening line  of Poem 96 of English Gitanjali]—and when his pocket book came back to me—I found these words written in hi dear book—with your name beneath.”