With the end of the turbulent, troublesome year of 2018, I’m recalling the inspirational verse of Rabindranath Tagore, winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature.

His poem “Let my country awake,” composed in 2010, urged countrymen to seek freedom from oppression and to aspire to freedom from division, based on prejudices and superstitions.

Progressive and broad-minded, Tagore urged his countrymen to strive for perfection, exercising thought monitored by rational thinking.

He valued a “clear stream of reason [that] has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit.” Yes, that’s a very tall order for those of us hoping for a re-awakening of fellow Americans. But it seems worth the candle.

For the full text of Tagore’s beautiful, elegant verse, Google “Let my country awake by Rabindranath Tagore.”

ROBERT BRAKE

Ocean Park, Washington