Page:Classical Poets Of Gujarat.pdf/54

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colours where he likes and lovés them. However, he does. not much indulge in paintings of this kind, but generally rises above the manners and social institutions of his times and translates the people into higher forms of society and sentiments, where it is not children that are married by custom but men and women who are drawn into sacred wedlock by spontaneous unions of heart. Religion he loves, and he is fond of bringing out the poetry of the religions of his country-men so far as itis a poetry of the heart. These are some of the leading featurers of his modus operandi, and the result is a number of beautiful poems which supply Gujarat with purer and higher ideals of social life and place before the people touching or thrilling pictures of what is beautiful and ennobling in the dearest. of their sentiments and associations. That'a poet who has successfully worked upon these lines, should be immortal in his land, that his works should be read and enjoyed by those who can read, that those who are illiterate should have them recited before them : all this is very intelligible even in a -eountry which got its printing press only after a century and a half had rolled on after the poet had ceased: to sing. Manuscript copies of the poét’s works are even at .this day preserved and gopied and circulated and greedily read, and woman who cannot read commit whole poems

‘of his by heart and communicate their dear treasures to

their sisters and frieds and daughters.