Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free..
Into that heaven of freedom, let my country awake.
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Into that heaven of freedom, let my country awake.
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Into that heaven of freedom, let my country awake.
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, let my country awake.
-- Rabindranath Tagore
This was sung as a hymn in my school. I wonder what made me think of this all of a sudden today. How very apt & relevant it sounds even today.