Letter from Susan Own to Rabindranath Tagore

Dear Sir Rabindranath:

I have been trying to find courage to write to you ever since I heard that you were in London –
but the desire to tell you something is finding its way into this letter today. The letter may
never reach you, for I do not know how to address it, tho’ I feel sure your name upon the envelope
will be sufficient. It is nearly two years ago, that my dear eldest son went out to the War for
the last time and the day he said Goodbye to me – we were looking together across the sun-glorified sea –
looking towards France with breaking hearts – when he, my poet son, said these wonderful words of yours –
‘jabar diney ei kawthati boley jeno jai – ja dekhechi, ja peyechi tulona tar nai’ – ‘when I leave, let these
be my parting words: what my eyes have seen, what my life received, are unsurpassable.’ And when his pocket
book came back to me – I found these words written in his dear writing – with your name beneath. Would I be
asking too much of you, to tell me what book I should find the whole poem in?

Letter from Susan Owen (mother of Wilfred Owen) to Rabindranath Tagore, 1920.