Collected Poems

Parabrahman

Know more >

These wanderings of the suns, these stars at play
    In the due measure that they chose of old,
Nor only these, but all the immense array
    Of objects that long Time, far Space can hold,

Page 216

Are divine moments. They are thoughts that form,
    They are vision in the Self of things august
And therefore grandly real. Rule and norm
    Are processes that they themselves adjust.

The Self of things is not their outward view,
    A Force within decides. That Force is He;
His movement is the shape of things we knew,
    Movement of Thought is Space and Time. A free

And sovereign master of His world within,
    He is not bound by what He does or makes,
He is not bound by virtue or by sin,
    Awake who sleeps and when He sleeps awakes.

He is not bound by waking or by sleep;
    He is not bound by anything at all.
Laws are that He may conquer them. To creep
    Or soar is at His will, to rise or fall.

One from of old possessed Himself above
    Who was not anyone nor had a form,
Nor yet was formless. Neither hate nor love
    Could limit His perfection, peace nor storm.

He is, we cannot say; for Nothing too
    Is His conception of Himself unguessed.
He dawns upon us and we would pursue,
    But who has found Him or what arms possessed?

He is not anything, yet all is He;
    He is not all but far exceeds that scope.
Both Time and Timelessness sink in that sea:
    Time is a wave and Space a wandering drop.

Page 217

Within Himself He shadowed Being forth,
    Which is a younger birth, a veil He chose
To half-conceal Him, Knowledge, nothing worth
    Save to have glimpses of its mighty cause,

And high Delight, a spirit infinite,
    That is the fountain of this glorious world,
Delight that labours in its opposite,
    Faints in the rose and on the rack is curled.

This was the triune playground that He made
    And One there sports awhile. He plucks His flowers
And by His bees is stung; He is dismayed,
    Flees from Himself or has His sullen hours.

The Almighty One knew labour, failure, strife;
    Knowledge forgot divined itself again:
He made an eager death and called it life,
    He stung Himself with bliss and called it pain.