Poems
THEME/S
After the inevitable but temporary eclipse of its true aim and function which poetry suffered in recent times in common with all the other cultural values of life owing to the preponderantly externalised activism of the modern age, it seems to be endeavouring not only to recover the height of its past achievement from which it fell but also, enriched inwardly even from this fall and made more puissantly conscious of its high purpose, to rise to yet newer and greater heights; once again the poetic spirit seems to be coming to the front as a luminous guide to the ever-progressing soul of humanity; once again it seems to be resuming its essential function of being the mediator between the truth of the spirit and the truth of life and of revealing through inspired rhythmic word the infinite delight and beauty of the spirit on all the manifold planes of its manifestation. Now that we are retracing our steps from the error of considering as final and all-sufficient the merely materialistic, vitalistic and even idealistic explanations and interpretations of life and its aim and, going further and deeper, are admitting the greater all-reconciling and integrating truth of the spirit and endeavouring for its realisation and expression in life, poetry equally with the other arts, or perhaps more than the other arts, it being according to Sri Aurobindo, the most complete of all the arts and most subtle of our means of aesthetic self-expression is rightly felt to be one of the most powerful aids to this endeavour.
At the centre of this creative effort stands Sri Aurobindo whose recent poetical work (only a little of which is as yet published) is a unique, unprecedented and stupendous outburst from the topmost peaks of spiritual vision and inspiration. His work is too great for our normal standards to judge at its proper value, or perhaps too near in point of time for us to appreciate adequately; perhaps even the greatest of creative work in such a neglected eld as poetry has inevitably to wait for some lapse of time before it gets even nodding recognition.
But Sri Aurobindo is no lonely creator working for personal aims and his creative work is not conned merely to poetry. He is the Master-moulder of the temper of the coming age. Though, like Leonardo Da Vinci of the earlier age, he might carry on his work away from the superficial tumult of his time, he, like him, is working at the
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very centre of the evolutionary march of the race, controlling the mainsprings of the upward surge of progressive forces, releasing from their involved secrecy and setting forth in dynamic motion the root powers that shape the mind and life of the coming age. Not only are alive in him the magnificence and the greatness of all the past cultural ages, not only has he a rm grasp over all the essential achievements of the present age, but also by him is carried forward all this splendid greatness of the past and the present towards a still more golden future. More than any other person, he is the torch-bearer of our age, the opener of doors to unknown far-flung splendours, the bringer of the dawn of Divine Life.
In the eld of poetry too Sri Aurobindo is the Master, but his work is not conned only to his own great poetic achievement; he has also created poetry of singular beauty and excellence through some others who have allowed his master-hands to mould their poetic faculties to extraordinary greatness. In the radiant ethereal heavens of the Poetic Muse Sri Aurobindo is the Sun round whom revolve his satellites, nourished and sustained by the light they receive from him.
Nirodbaran, a selection of whose poems is presented in this volume, is evidently one of the satellites of the Aurobindonian Sun, qualified for medical profession, he could be least expected to make his way into so disparate a eld as poetry and it is doubtful if he would have turned out any valuable poetry, had he not come under Sri Aurobindo's potent influence. This is not meant to imply that he came to, and has been living for past several years near, Sri Aurobindo to become a great poet nor to suggest that Sri Aurobindo's influence on others consists in creating literary greatness in them. The aim of Sri Aurobindo's endeavour being fundamentally none other than the realisation of the Spirit, his influence on those who choose to follow him works primarily to no other end than their spiritual development. But since Sri Aurobindo's acceptance of the central spiritual aim does not imply a complete and unqualified rejection of life and its values, but rather involves their deliverance from their basic insufficiency and a fulfilment of their secret urge by a thoroughgoing and drastic spiritual transmutation of all their powers, no significant endeavour in any eld of life is left out of his total and comprehensive aim. The pursuit of the aesthetic value (of which poetry forms a very powerful channel) the seeking for the beautiful and delightful in man and nature and God and in all things has always been one of these high endeavours of the race and in Sri Aurobindo's integral aim it occupies an important place in so far as it helps us to draw near, contact directly and realise
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intimately the infinite Bliss and Beauty of the Spirit in its essential self-existence as also in its endless manifestation everywhere and, having realised them, to seek for their expression through the inspired rhythmic word and the revelatory vision.
The intense imprint of this inspired intuitive word and vision is evident everywhere in the poems included in this volume; everywhere the lines seem highly vibrating to the subtle felicitous music of some distant and lofty planes of the Spirit; everywhere is felt the enchanting impact on our listening of the voice of the spiritual muse singing sometimes in delicate exquisite strains, sometimes in profound massive tones, sometimes in wide-winged, high-soaring rhythms. Nowhere the authentic intuitive inspired utterance gets stied or marred by the falsifying intrusion of the external speech, nowhere the intrinsic light of the inner vision gets clouded or blurred in the revealing expression; nowhere the deeper subtle profundities and potencies get cribbed or maimed in transmission. The height and intensity of the poets inspiration no doubt varies, but even at his lowest pitch he never forsakes the intuitive felicity of the genuinely inspired word and vision; never does he lapse into the mere intellectualised or the externally vital or sensational mode of speech or seeing& Even at a very moderate estimate Nirodbaran's poetry must rank very high indeed; truly evaluated, it must be acclaimed as a definitive milestone on the slowly unfolding path of the evolution of the future poetry.
Kishore H. Gandhi
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I read life's mystery sculptured in thy Face: Wonder inscrutable, bring close to my sight The fathomless beauty of thy mortal gaze Whence leaps the splendour of the Infinite.
The pure and delicate touches of thy hand Awake an unforgettable ecstasy: My human heart begins to understand Thou art the home of all felicity.
Through interminable changes I feel An unbroken link that draws me near and near Till on the verge of time Thou shalt reveal The secret Truth hidden in thy heart's sphere,
And life with golden wings of vision sail Across the Spirits unnavigated seas, Dropping this weary earth like a crumpled veil Upon a shore of sombre memories.
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OUT of your face there look at me Two fathomless inexpressible eyes, And from the heaven of their gaze Outpour a wine of gold sun-rise.
I lose myself in its nectar-flood, A star burning in caves of night. Remembrances of happy thoughts Come winging from a sleepless height.
An ocean-like immensity Invades my narrow earthly stream With an ineffable calm and peace, Its waves are crested with a gleam
Of beauty, child of thy delight: The heart of dimness glows within, As the veil slowly fades away And new paths open to unseen
Vistas where mortal vision pales. An infinite silence born of Thee Awakes and an immortal rhythm Of measureless felicity!
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AN emptiness has fallen On my days of silver dream Bordered with streaks of gold, Thy vision's shadowless gleam.
Dim reminiscences Of flight across thy skies Stir in my voiceless heart As I front thy fathomless eyes.
Like a fire of moon-delight My spirit shines on thy sea, Breaking and forming its life With waves of thy ecstasy.
Strange figures come and go Circling my impregnable Fortress of marble rocks Founded on thy God-will.
How from an invisible height With infinite care and pains Thou carvest on each cell Beauty that never wanes,
A sleepless hush of light Mirroring thy domeless mind On its transparent orb Of space rainbow-outlined!
Slowly the secret hands Working thy mysteried law Bring into luminous View The Beyond and then withdraw
Behind the veil of time: Now the Spirits lonelihood Is crowned with the majesty Of thy gold vastitude!
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UNDER the white felicitous eye of the moon My heart spreads slowly wings drunk with the infinite; In wide, blue spaces of air, lost in a swoon, It floats like a glad song from height to height.
Earth's narrow cage dwindles into a dot; The hills and trees with their cool, emerald shade Seem like old memories, a vanishing spot On life's horizon of dim shadows made.
Now the stars' fragrant breath runs in the veins And lightning-tremors murmuringly flow: One with the astral body's lambent glow, My flaming sight a new world-vision gains,
Where all creation is a Godward cry In a vast plenitude of ecstasy.
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I SAW a shape of heaven's delight Playing on the earth's sombre shore, Whose beauty opening to dawn-sight Surprised my heart's lone slumbering door.
Her face was a splendour of living hue Culled like the mornings single rose: Never a cloud or shadow she knew, A child of heaven's bright repose.
From dawn to eve she played with time As if her feet could never tire, A deathless rhythm, a heavenly rhyme, Was her untamable soul of fire.
Her laughter like a magic bell Cleaving the nights dark consciousness Echoed in memorys amber shell And in spirals lost its moon-white trace.
Whenever her limbs of light would take her Through trodden ways under arches of thought, Even a murmur would awake her To an ancient solitude star-enwrought.
The sky, the earth and the rocking sea Are the sleepless cradle of her vision; A growing flame of infinity, Her birth was a celestial mission.
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HER eyes shine like a glistening crescent moon On a vast blue background of radiant peace; Stars flaming shaped her body's curves of bliss To the perfect beauty of a heavenly tune.
Tapering fingers of an infinite Force Mould life's grey mire to a bright rhythm of sun: Through a gold glowing network lustre-spun The luminous breath into earth's darkness pours.
Her footfalls bring a stainless hush of time Like slumbering coils of matted clouds on sky; Piercing the horizons fire-intensities climb Towards the ultimate source, the blazing eye,
The inexhaustible celestial stream Whence she came veiled like an embodied dream.
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LIFE is a veil that covers a spirit-sky; An infinite range of stars is held concealed, And all that reaches from these firmly sealed Heavens are but dim flickers of things high.
An inexhaustible source is there of Peace, A Light unborn, undreamt of by this world: Like songs in a silent bosom scarlet-pearled It sleeps, bathed in the spray of seven seas.
The hour has come and, pierced through burning sands Of desert-fire, the murmuring voice is heard Of a gold stream. What mighty crystal hands Release the music-flood of the Sun-bird?
The veil withdraws, and yet few only see The figure of winged Light, wrapped Mystery!
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CALM like the mountain and inviolable Rises this star out of the morning-sea Hewn slowly from Gods hushed creative will, First word breaking the womb of agony.
A voice it brings and opens the hidden door Through a narrow fissure of encrusted earth: A blazing eye of the invisible core Comes down like an eagle into mortal birth.
Life's dead, and from its voiceless grave of snow A million rays reflect the unborn sun; Nothing that has lived lone in its white ow Is ever dead, but a still silence won
Into the throb of hueless matted coils: A jewel fashioned from rock-stone of toils.
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A GIANT figure carved from the rock of Night Chiselled with poignant fires of Sun and Moon, A body outlined with a measureless might Where heaven and earth have joined their spirit-rune.
A myriad streams ow from his luminous feet To elemental spheres of voiceless hush Where nascent worlds are rhythmed to one heart-beat, Lit with creations primal roseate blush.
He stands behind the heaving stress of the hours, A tower of triumphant Force and Light, A lonely peak crowned with the Infinite Hiding within a passion-heart of flowers.
Lightening our shadowy blossom of life his grace Hews from earth's clay beauty of a white-moon face.
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A MOONBEAM path trails slowly away Across the quiet sea And kindled glows with diamond sparks Of starry intensity.
Gold flames floating on a dim sky Illume the grooves of night, And falling on barred distances Of sheer untrammelled height
Reflect the majesty of a still And lonely figure of trance A monument of giant strength Stabbing the dark expanse.
Upon its poignant cutting edge Smiles a deathless moon, While glistening waters dream below Lulled to a radiant swoon.
A path across its bosom winds To an infinite source of peace An outblaze of immortal light Over the slumbering seas!
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BRIGHT mystery of earth, O foam-washed shore On the edge of time, you bring thoughts pale and sweet Of happiness long lost, memories that bore In their veiled bosom twilight's starry heart-beat!
These desert-tracts, as they lie lifeless, cold Strange melancholies buried in their sand, Are like dry barren moments deeply scrolled On endless canvas by an inscrutable hand.
Whence like a cry of fire night and day Your soul climbs to the topless distant peaks In the heart of solemn vastness holding sway, Lined with immutable silence's golden streaks.
Your body's faint murmur falls slowly heard, A dying warrior's last half-spoken word.
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THE flame of an eternal life Burns inly like a deathless star; Inviolate as a cliff Its incense-wings rise towards the Far.
On our high summit tracts it throws Reflections of a shadowless bliss, Fragrance of heaven's immortal Rose, A glory of crimson silences.
A rapture cadence of a wave From an immutable moonfringed sky, It came into the body's cave The Timeless seizing time's deep cry.
The smile of a sun-haloed Face Colours the bare and voiceless sea; In breathless bleak and trammelled space Heart-beats of moon-White ecstasy!
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BRING down from heaven the luminous spark; In ruthless lightning-fires burn The impenetrable abysms dark; Then open like a flower and turn
Each atom to the fathomless Infinities of an unknown Sun; Fill like a cup thy consciousness Emptied of the spirits oblivion.
Cast from thee the rm gyves of Time; Reveal the soul's intensities, The lofty vision, the sublime Heights, the ineffable stillnesses.
In the immutable depths of God Seek the elusive Mystery; Jewelled with his delight and shod With his unborn felicity,
The limit and the transient bond Fallen like a shattered pot, Find Winged release in the Beyond A shadowless flight of a gold Thought.
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NOT in those dust-born particles of breath But on the height of a blue deathless hill Is the unshakable peace, the golden wreath Of crowning victory, the world-forging Will.
On burning sands life's futile caravans tread Lured by the passionate flicker-call of flesh, In the same blind eager circles ever led Through the labyrinthine deserts mesh on mesh.
Find rather under the soul's austere sign The pure fountains of heaven's deluge-fire, The rock-embedded source, the spirit-mine, The immortal wine of sovereign Desire.
Plunge into silence of that bourneless sea, Mirror of the vast Wings of eternity.
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BURN no more candles in a mid-night heart: Sleep like a child in utter self-lost peace; All ripples from life's surface shall depart Into a lulled abode of motionless seas.
I Under the veil of blue infinity Where deathless eyes like flaming jewels shine, Tread moments crowned with new birth's ecstasy Over memory's threshold in the spirits shrine.
Space has lost all its heavy hue of sighs In a colourless still mystery of sound The artist aureoled Sun-goddess dyes, A symphony descending earthward bound.
Deep silence now has come upon the night, Moon-song and star-song and gold-fretted Light.
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O PURPLE glory of Light, thy mystic call Echoes in my heart as in a hollow cave; Its voice pierces the age-old stony wall, It brings still peace as of a timeless grave.
Sapphire cascade, surging from thy hidden source Through winding tracks of night, bathe in thy spray: All blemish purged by thy immaculate Force, Let my soul shine as on the first-born day.
That twilight gaiety with its rainbow smile Across the glimmering vista of the sky Captives like a snake's fire-enchanting eye In the dreary meshes of a bondage-will.
On Thy star-woven wings, O bird of Light, Release my spirit to thy purple height.
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CREATION now is hushed to radiant sleep The shimmering foliage and the smiling flower, The pale suspense of water round a steep Lone mountain silver-robed. At this cool hour When a vast silence crowns the depth and height, Wrapt in calm reverie, I watch the moon, My soul's own counterpart, transform the night To an inexpressible ethereal tune, Echoed through unbound space in starry gleams. The tenuous sails upon the passionless sky Carry to magic shores my prisoned dreams That through long births have blossomed but to die.
Now a life's weary quest shall be fulfilled, For on my brow his promise He has sealed.
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KEEP up the flame of sapphire-gold, Arrow-point of the heart; Dream-secrecy luminously scrolled Blazons a new ways start.
The ash of dawn, the grey of eve, The pearl of the moon Shall track no more fire-silent heave Climbing to the zenith noon.
Escaped from ruthless folds of dark And wrinkled night, it has passed The ivory gate of the twilight arc To the halo of the Vast.
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O BRIEF immaculate moments of life In which you left The fragrant dream of your Presence And through nights narrow cleft
Poured a greater source of Light And deathless was the hour, Each memory a white blossom Carved on a rock of immortal power!
All the voices of eternity Whispered through a single star, And silences spoke from a womb of trance Of a God-loneliness far,
A Spirit-hush with silver wings In rhythmic flight away Beyond time's circumscribed frail thought And the dull notes of clay,
Beyond the range of transient sight In haunted spaces of the mind A universe of luminous peace Untouched by sun or moon or wind,
A pilgrimage of the solitary soul Risen from earth's dark tomb of death To whence began these conscious throbs of life And end in the one ultimate Breath.
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IN moonlit silence of the deep The sombre shades grow to a white Marble vision of the Infinite In a magic land of eternal sleep.
The wide suspense of the calm sea Shines like a brilliant play of swords; Incense-wings scrolled with starry words Glow with the secret Mystery.
The woodlands murmur like a stream Echoing through the still rocks and caves As if far half-seen glistening waves Had washed them with a nectarous dream.
Slowly the moon pales after her brief Smiles radiance poured upon the earth, All laughter and phosphorescent mirth Fall like a dead outworn leaf.
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BRIEF are the hours that come and swiftly pass Like flickers on the face of destiny; No memories written on its quiet glass Leave their faint trace of bright felicity.
Silvery flares washing the lone wide shore Remind of strange smiles from a shadowy height The soul's reflections drawing more and more Close to an earth eclipsed by agelong night.
Kaleidoscopic figures cross the foam Of Natures unrelieved blind ocean swoon And bring a white glimpse of moon-fringed gloam And haloed wings throbbing to an aureoled tune,
A breath and murmur of the Vast through time On the deep slumber of the mute Sublime.
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IMMENSELY calm and most ineffably sweet Is the regard of those half-blossomed eyes! How gentle is the pressure of those hands When the heart bows before her lotus-feet! A moment's touch—what founts of joy arise Running through dull grains of my life's dead sands Like a cool stream where once never was shade! As I stand rapt in that mysterious gaze, My consciousness is hushed into a deep Silence; being and thought and universe fade Into oblivion; this earth's prison maze Where in our gilded chains we laugh and weep Through Life's unending Circles, day and night, Falls off like a leaf torn by a short breath Of wind; the gurge of violent Time is cast Into the silence of a lone sky-height. I look into those God-eyes that conquer death, Oceans of love and tides of rapture vast Mad with a drunkards joy I quaff and brim; The finite for this one moment brief drinks The Infinite.
One moment only, alas! Times seizes and Space dungeons and the dream, The deep spell breaks. I am left on the grey brinks Of human consciousness weltering morass Of a blind ignorance cresseted with desire: A dark sea with a phosphorescent Fire!
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ON this dark corner of my cell Fingers of Light fall—slow and white— From the invisible crescent moon; Ethereal seems the prisoned night!
The beams pale, slowly move away; Through the iron bars my dream-eyes cast A final glance: the silver trails Wing to some unknown regions Vast.
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MOTHER, when thou hast kept thy hand' Upon my palm And from thy many-coloured eyes Pourest dew-calm, A myriad melodies awake That slept so long: The burden of the dark centuries Blossoms like a song. By the power of a soft silken touch The Infinite speaks Out of its hushed unbroken silence In gold sun-streaks, And my spirit wings up far away Beyond time's ridge. A moment's vision, a flickering call Crossing the earth-bridge, It is lost on high like a sudden eagle In a flight of bliss: A new birth pulses and a glow Of unknown release. Then, like the hasty end of a dream, A shadow falls On azure heights of my lustrous day. Nature enthralls, Or the red fire of the ignorant heart On the body's pit Draws down from the wide sky-suspense Thy Infinite. Bestow, O Mother, the solemn pledge Of victory, At end of the long and Winding paths Thy orbed Divinity.
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LET every moment of my life Be crowned with diamond thoughts of Thee; Chisel from the hard granite rocks A statue of divinity.
Colour my dawn and desert-noon With wonder-fires of thy delight And tune my heaven's dusky mood To symphonies of thy starry night.
Dispel all blemishes by thy touch And make my Spirits kingdom shine In glory like a deathless sky, A cup filled with thy heavenly wine.
In the infinite silence let me merge Untraversed by the faintest sound, No wrinkle of rough time disfigure The Eternals timeless calm around.
Draw from the slumbering depths of my sea Pearled expressions of the soul, Thy unmanifest creative Word, The splendours of thy golden scroll.
From the undiscovered shoreless Vast Slowly thy mysteries unfold: My mortal vision lift to sight, Each atom with thy Beauty mould.
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TO a great marble house of Time I came a lonely guest; He said Whatever riches you own, Jewels and silver and the rest
Submit to me and I will bestow On you the costliest boon, Beauty and immaculate love, Life's crowning desire, hewn
From heaven's perfect peace and joy; In a frail mortal frame Moments of immortality And Gods red passion-flame!
In his bright mansion proud and high I lived a very king, Love owed around me like a stream And beauty blossomed, a golden spring.
Happy was I as none has been, Lost in a glinting world, All my dreams intimately woven In wavy locks and golden-curled.
My eyes drank like delicious wine Gaze of a white felicity And glowed as with a starry fire Of wide sky-ecstasy.
But winter came and a chill frost Froze the heart of the moon, For morning buds and laughing streams A grave of snow- white swoon.
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There came a deep and quiet voice: Love has his short-lived hour: His red fire fades and beauty dies Turn to a greater power,
Pass by his transient earthly gifts; Only by a bleeding sacrifice Of all you hold and crave and cherish Is won the Timeless Paradise!
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TODAY my heart is stricken and sore, My eyes are darkened and blind, I cannot see your angel-face! How shall I ever find
In all this overhanging gloom What once was lost, regain That smile of paradisal eyes, Whence love and beauty rain?
Remove this hungering shadow's fire, This smoke of titan cloud That stie my Spirits upward urge With coils of poisonous doubt.
Alone on a timeless smouldering shore I wait and vainly wait Counting the green-hooded wild waves, Until some lurking Fate
Hold me in its fierce dragon-claws, Or heaven's redemption white Bring here for my deliverance Its golden boat of light.
Here are but tears, like silver dew And ominous whispers round, And monstrous presences in glee Dance on Deaths burning ground.
A smothered sigh is the heavy air And Time a press of pain, Night trails her sad infinity Under a sick moons wane!
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O unseen stars of my destiny Shall I yet hear your call And like an eagle cleave the mists, Overcoming Natures fall,
And meet that aureoled face of Dawn, And the vestal fire of my soul, Daybreak and the flowers' smile, The Suns divine control!
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MY life is as a slow unveiling Of the imaged beauty of thy Light, Like a dry century of darkness Ransomed from the coils of night.
A dimmest star on a fringe of sky Is glowing like an incense-flame And spreads its diamond hint of splendour In a shrine that bears thy haloed Names
White petals of my voiceless love Thy luminous feet adorn, Where flowers of a heavenly hue In silence bow, from silence born.
Still, as the flaming vision grows And the rapt Godward consciousness, I hear a sharp and stabbing cry Tearing my soul's intensities.
It is the giant cry of death Who lures me like a serpent-eye Into his tombed oblivion Like a star fallen from thy sky.
I will rise yet healed of my mortal wounds To thy dome of jewelled ecstasy, A warrior-soul invincible, Chainless, orbed with infinity!
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ACROSS the darkness of the night wonder-Hand she stretched to me, But the vague outlines of her face Hid in a veil of mystery!
The stars burnt out and the wan moon Peeped from behind a last dim cloud; But we marched on through barriers Of rugged hills, the brazen shroud,
The desert silences of time; A narrow pathway bare and lone We followed, drunk with the delight Of conquering some unknown
Riches of a gold spirit sun Beyond the haunted gulfs of night. The veil dissolved; the hand I held Bore up a flame of the Infinite!
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OUT of a distant deep you came Through a rustling nearness of woods, white flower of an unknown name, Blossom of rapt solitudes! From every petal you shed Your hue of fragrant peace And life awakes to strange far-spread Reveries.
In the sleepless heart of night Gleamed no star, No dimmest flicker of light Close or far!
In the depths you kindled the rapture-glow Of a moon-haloed fire; We heard the immortals music ow From heaven's golden lyre.
O Beauty on the highest peak, From the snow of its sunlit death One hewed you, streak on streak Of colour, breath on living breath.
Alone and crowned like a queen you shone On the edge of the Infinite, But you left the unshadowed timeless Dawn, The eternal invisible height,
And into the valley of ignorance On inconscient earth you came To lift her from dumb abysmal trance To thy home of deathless Flame.
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THOU hast tinged my vagrant life With silver hues of dawn And the gold fires of eve, Over sky and earth hast drawn,
The night, a velvet couch For my tired soul to rest In a bright felicity On thy calm and peaceful breast.
I sleep oblivious Of mortal hankerings; Dreams of thy love and beauty Visit with heavenly wings
And leave their memory Haunting my still repose, Like the subtle fragrant breath Of a lustrous divine Rose.
The conquering smile of thy eyes And thy immaculate thought Reveal like a sudden ash The God-face I have sought
Through countless veils of birth, A shadow seeking Light; Though lost was thy white trail In the wide gulfs of night,
Thou hast kept thy sleepless watch On my erring human ways. When, plunged in the abyss, I called thy infinite Grace,
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Thou hast come, Beloved and Friend, To lift to thy Sun Leading through timeless deeps To intimate union.
Now the thick veil is rent And we for ever meet: My life a passion-flower Laid at thy luminous feet!
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MY thoughts are fruited on thy magic tree Among gold leaves, hung on a silver bough; Fruits lustrous; delicate-hued like ivory Or diamond stars shining on the sky-brow.
I pluck them one by one for my heart's store Where like a rapturous vision they shall glow; The tranced crystal walls and marble floor Mirror their flame like glassy mounds of snow.
Each thought is burdened with thy mood divine And wrapt with thy beauty unimaginable, Brimming with splendours of a sun-red wine And songs of a gold-throated nightingale.
They are my spirits moon-deep prayer to thee Growing from earth-encumbered fiery seed On a rocky curve of lone eternity Woven-incense words and heaven-reveried.
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ALAMBENT cloud etched on a dream Jewel-throated white-peacock shape Floats on the night-hushed sapphire stream From star-cape to gem-outlined cape.
Filled with a heavenly merchandise It sails, borne by a dim-paced breeze; The moons unfathomed glowing eyes Guide the pearl-trail with wizard rays.
A sudden storm breaks the gold-lined Tranquillity of the sky-swoon: A fiery dragons breath, the wind Blackens the bright dream and the moon.
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LET thy silver silence pour Wonder-rays of the moon On my lonely sand-grey shore, Suddenly jewel-strewn.
Many foam-washed shells there bring Traces of the high Lustrous sea where, ring on ring, Breaks a mystery.
All my prayer and bleeding quest For thy sky-winged Flame Led me to the dark-veiled West, Where thy secret Name
Like a dream-orbed twilight shone In the shadowy deep; Pathways of the amethyst dawn Linked in ivory sleep
With the snow-white vigilance Of an endless light: Timeless rapture of thy trance Oceaned Infinite.
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IN the red-white garden of my vision A myriad flowers glow: Each is fired with thy heavenly mission, Row on burning row.
Thou hast blown thy Spirits miracle-breath On their ivory seeds: Now they blossom in the valley of death, Dawn-winged dewy beads.
When thy zephyr from some luminous deep Flows with rings of light, Their soft tresses in dream-woven sleep Murmur in the night.
And some cadenced footfalls wandering they hear In the silver mist, Snow-foamed ripples of a moon-edged mere, Gold and amethyst.
O symbols of His jewelled revery Burning myriad-hued On my diamond altar, a prophecy Of His solitude!
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SOMEONE leads me through the flame-paved ways To a moon-white land of God, Where the shadow-calls of earth-weariness Have but in a dream-mist trod. Blue-grey clouds like rainbow-plumed birds Voyage slowly in the air; Like fire-point torches flicker starry words Burning in a diamond prayer.
In foam-fleece billow-ranges of the sky Through their rocky gates of gold Tracks of my soul's rugged journey lie To thy heaven's immortal fold.
Make my heart thy home and lead to the far Vision where thy timeless breath Glows beyond the sapphire-winged star In the tranquil dome of Death.
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O RADIANT minstrel of my heart Sing from your shadow-lonely bower, Where in white plenitudes apart Your songs are wed to the timeless Hour.
The first glimpses of a new-born Laugh of earth-flames in the green wood, Birds bringing from the depths of dawn Music of God-beatitude;
Natures prophetic scrolls of love Lighting the dome of a dark height, Cloud-foam-wrapt candles above On the altar of the Infinite;
Still distances of snowy elds On undulating sapphire space And the moon-aureoled night that builds A silence of weird pale blue rays
Are songs cast by the magic breath Of Beauty, are a sacrifice Offered, a lustrous-gleaming wreath In her gold fame of memories.
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I HAVE grown into a milk-white fire of the moon In the sky-shadow of the Vast; Clouds of pale figures fall into a swoon From my soul's radiance cast.
Candle-vision from haunts of starry caves Flickers on my path of dreams Like sinuous smiles of pearl-glistening waves On the heart of rock-strewn streams.
Poised in an eagle-calm my thoughts ow Over dark ranges of night Burdened with the hues of some invisible glow Of a sun-dripping light.
Around a haloed face they hover and rest And on its beauty brood And drink now the gold-brimming nectar, pressed From its infinitude.
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MY life is veiled in a sleep of light, A hush that nothing breaks; The world before my inward sight Into pure beauty wakes.
Life that is deep and wonder-vast, Lost in a breath of sound; The bubbling shadows have been cast From its heart's timeless round.
In its lulled silver stream now shines A lustrous smile of God Whose brilliantly curved outlines, Flashing on the memory-trod
Caverns of slumbering earth, there bring A glow of the Infinite, While my soul's diamond voices Wing Into a heaven of light.
Page 46
AN infinite silence belts my view With its myriad stars of gold: The magic beauty of a new Splendour, magic-scrolled.
From caves of a fathomless abyss One by one they arise Burdened with secret memories Of a lost paradise.
Across a drowsy circle of clouds And through deep chasms of time They come, tearing the slumber shrouds Like peals of a soul-heard chime.
In their heaven-lustrous rhythm I find Wonders of a world of Light, Bringing on the earth dim-outlined The beauty of the Infinite.
Page 47
MY body is now a flame Of the Spirit-fire; Towards thy crystal Name Its hues aspire.
Nothing shadows its deep Moon-pearled breath Falling like a still sleep From the height of Death.
Visions come there and go Leaving their white Silence like a hushed glow Of thy wizard Light.
Slowly I have become A mirrored dawn Of earth's lone martyrdom To thy heaven withdrawn.
Page 48
IN the shoreless silence of the night A myriad fires are aglow, Emerald, ruby and pearl-white Visions on a timeless brow.
On my path of destiny they cast Shadows of the heavenly states That through the voids of time have passed And the secret flaming gates.
And now the deeps of my Spirit shine With the measureless beauty of God And are mirrors of His mood divine, A fathomless Wonder's abode.
And my days are circled round with dreams Of His endless mysteries; They come owing from His luminous sun-streams On the edge of the Infinities.
Page 49
I AM thy loneliness And thy White fire; In thy heart's silences My Spirit-lyre
Sings a celestial tune Unendingly, A carol of the moon On a measureless sea.
My nights and days are cast In thy heaven-mould Like to a cup sky-vast Wrought in sun-gold.
Clouds and stars come and pass In a shadow void, While my heart's crystal glass Reflects unalloyed
Thy image Beauty-born And intimate, And the ever-Widening dawn Of thy timeless state.
Page 50
O STARRY fires, O sacrifice of the dawn Beyond earth's darkling thought, In my heart's glow rising, shed your beauty on My altar twilight-wrought.
These candle flames upon the verge of night Uplift their flickering arms Towards your sapphire heaven's cathedral height Like shadow-winged glow-worms.
Their mortal breath seeks in the wilderness The moons argent eyes To kindle in their blurred gloom-haunted ways Your Vision of Paradise.
Shine on their path, O star-hearted Dawn, Let your gold-crested sun Crown the dumb quest of centuries dim-withdrawn, With its flame-union.
Page 51
UNDER the shadow of a giant tree Voices of sky-birds are heard, Sun-white soul's of a gold infinity To a lustrous music stirred.
With a flaming beauty they are draped And with starry wings of Death, By some miracle-hand they are shaped, Dew-drops of heaven's pearled breath.
Upon rocks of drowsy height their seat, They with earth's lone spirit commune, Pouring from their heart's luminous-rhythmed beat Songs of a magic-hearted moon.
Birds of Vision, fraught with heavenly treasure, Brimming with a diamond peace, Fill our yearning vastness with the measure Of your unhorizoned seas.
Page 52
A GIANT bird of Light From infinity Looks on the slumbering Earth silently.
Its endless vigil sees The luminous brood Of the ephemeral stars Blown out and renewed,
And earth's white memory Like a circling fire Behind the shadows of life That suffer and aspire.
Ever it pours from its heart A wine of the sun, Pressed from Gods luminous vines Till the glooms are done.
Its deathless moments bring An Elysian sleep, Woven of the secrecies Of His timeless Deep.
Its soul is a pearl of Light In the hush of the sky, An eternal wonder-Vigils Mystery!
Page 53
TIMELESS flame-wings are spread Covering the skies Over her infinite brow; The sun-fires of her eyes
Pierce through the pitch-dark night With their shafts of gold, While her heaven-sculpturing hands On earth have unrolled
A wonder-pageant of light Seven-hued, On seas and mountain snows And shadowy wood.
In her image a World is unveiled Of beauty and love Lost to our memory Long waiting above.
It seems to descend like rain In secret showers On my aspiring soul, Till its barren hours
Caught in the meshes of time Glow line on line Like radiant throbs of bliss Of her heart divine.
Page 54
THERE is no other way but one: Single-hearted like a desert-sun The wide stretches of molten fire Must be crossed through though limbs may tire.
You have no other way now, none: The world like a smashed cup is done; Its frail gossamer memories Are broken, piece by quivering piece.
Wipe off the dews from your tortured brow! The blood-stained soul's lone Godward vow Must never flicker nor become A shadow of pale martyrdom.
Page 55
A LONELY tramp of Heaven I go Along the high watermark of time Where time itself has ceased to ow In the silence of the vast Sublime.
The beauty of the earth no longer draws My spirit to its enchanting fold, Nor need I for a moment pause To think whether the light I hold
Within my heart can fade away: I know that a far greater light Shall guide my soul with puissant ray Across the gulf of timeless night.
My feet shall never rest nor tire Until, my destined journey done, I stand, led by the inscrutable fire, Before the seat of the lonely One.
Page 56
CAST from your sight the veil That comes between Each time you turn its gaze Towards the Unseen.
A transient film of light Obscures your soul And hides the ineffable view Of the aureole
That gleams beyond our skies Of thought and sleep, Crowning eternitys Invisible deep.
The moments are pale and bare Of Time's barrenness, Heart-throbs of joy and grief Perturb the caress
Of heaven's ultimate dream Around your earth Waking its frozen life Into new birth.
The flickering sun must set With its shadow-tears, And the cry of the centuries Pass from your ears,
A song of love and beauty Break the hushed breath Of everlasting Mind On the peak of Death.
Page 57
I SHALL yet rise like a lone star In the dark firmament; Nothing shall ever veil or bar My spirits heaven-ascent.
His wondrous beauty I have seen Shining in the inert clay, A smile of deathless light within Its heart of pale decay.
The nearness of his magic breath Lifts me above the world Of grey memories to a death Tranquil and luminous-whorled.
And his vast soul of diamond. light Presses with its sun-thought Upon the drowse of circling night In dream-crest billows fraught
With his splendour deep and measureless, Pearl-pure and luminous gold, A-brim with wine-red silences In his cup of infinite mould.
All my dim hours are slowly changed Into one motionless star Of his vision, myriad beauty ranged In a lone glow afar!
Page 58
No more I ask from thee What I have gained or lost, What shadow-veils wrap me, What distance I have crossed.
Childlike I learn to abide In thee with-perfect trust And all obscurities hide Behind thy sun as they must.
The beauty of thy heart Radiates a fire around, Till in my spirit shall start Music of purest sound.
When it haunts my memory, I see in a circle of light A heavenly company Like stars on a moon-crowned height,
And thy voice already I hear. Unmistakably as a sun Thy deathless eyes appear Cleaving oblivion.
I feel within my soul Crowding like gold fires The hidden immortal scroll, The Word that for thee aspires.
Page 59
SEEKING thy light I came Through labyrinths of time To thy vast, O sun-crowned Name, My soul's felicitous rhyme.
I travelled long alone Before my eyes could find Thy heaven-luminous throne Beyond the shadow-lined
Shore of earth-memories, Beyond the sombre wave The mystic silences, The moon-illumined cave.
Thy wonder-woven Light On the verge of time appears, An eye of the Infinite On a lone curve of the spheres.
Page 60
My childhood veiled a secrecy Within its delicate shroud Like a splendour of celestial light Under the folds of a cloud.
Often I used to think and feel That a white dream was laid Upon my eyes and suns and moons Out of that dream were made.
Bright birds from shadow-rocks began To sing of marvellous things And shed feathers of heavenly flame From their mysterious wings.
The whole creation seemed to bear A memory that I knew: The listening woods and echoing seas And the soft, slumbering hue
Of stars on the lone curve of night Vibrating in their sleep With a mystical immensity Of an invisible deep
Awoke a vision in my heart Whose hint I could not guess. I felt as if I were a wave Of some vast consciousness
That links my soul with each fire-breath Of life and inanimate Wonders that lie for centuries In their happy tranced state.
Page 61
The vision slowly died away But left behind its mark; Though a wide chasm eclipsed from view The apocalyptic spark,
Still in my timeless wanderings I felt a sudden cry Within the closed fane of my heart Reminding of a sky
That hid behind its sapphire veil Strange faces orbed with light And beckoning to their splendour-home Beyond the brink of night.
Now have I come to a silent shore Where my spirit is at rest: It has regained infinity, Recovered its God-nest.
Page 62
IN the growing silence of the day A silver wonder glows, A nucleus, born from the circling clay, Of light like a strange rose.
In my fathomless abyss it brings A moment's bright relief As if some heaven-descended wings Had own over this brief
Existence leaving but a trace Of their miraculous flight Upon the clustered memories Of the branching tree of night.
My burdened heart becomes a song Drunk with the wine of sleep Poured from the bodiless fire-throng In caves of a luminous deep.
Page 63
EACH thing bears its own mystery In the universe; Even the trill of a wandering bird Suddenly stirs
The dawn into a coloured song; A breath of wind Passing over a slumbering sea Awakes the blind
Waves to a glimpse of eternity; Even still flames Leap out of their imprisonment In frozen frames.
The hidden secrecies of earth Slowly rise up Touched by some miraculous wand And fill their cup
With splendours of a mystical light. The world is a voice Created from bare silences In a sun-gold poise.
All things form an inscrutable chain In an unseen scheme Born from some primal harmony Of the Supreme.
Page 64
IN the dreamward silence of the moon I saw a bird That had forgotten the luminous vasts, Weary and unstirred
By any rhythmic wave of the sky, And the starry beat Of the flame-heart of infinity Wakes not its feet
Out of the frozen solitude Of decaying light, Or the wings drooping into sleep In the cage of night.
But like a resurrection comes A sudden glow Of a limitless gold-dripping sun, And melts the snow
From its chilled spirit and reveals Before its gaze Vistas and bright immensities Beyond the haze
Of time and its waning history: The awakened bird Voyages, a ship with foam-white sails Towards the lost Word.
Page 65
EXILED on earth I lived In deep forgetfulness; I could no more believe That once my weary days
Had seen the timeless wings Approach like a Visiting star Or veiled awakenings Where nights extremities are.
Then came to my memory A sudden luminous streak, As hovering over a tree A golden poignant beak
That tasted every fruit; And each that fell from the boughs Awoke within the mute Interminable drowse
Of earth, a growing fire Invading her rocky sleep, Ascending ever higher To the viewless height of a steep.
There like a spray it broke In scintillating rays And from the abyss arose With long forgotten days
Of lustrous thought and dream, Circling around a sun Lost veil of the Supreme When shadows all are done.
Page 66
LIKE a white wandering sail Across the blue of night My thought voyages towards The gulf of the Infinite.
I hear hushed voices of earth Come burdened with the tears Of time, drifting along The spaces of shadow-years.
But a magic breath of flame, A strange entranced glow Figured on a wide calm Intensity of snow,
Like a way-lost golden sun Carries the infant dawn In its mysterious womb Timelessly sleeping on.
My restful dreams escape Behind the jewelled doors Of life to the far unknown Beauty of mystic shores,
Where in a still repose Seeds of high vision grow And fruits of eternity: They touch the worlds dim brow
Page 67
With a radiant caress Waking the memories Lulled in its crusted swoon Of the unborn ecstasies
From which the cosmic fire Sprang rhythmic into Space That Gods body might be born And the Formless wear a face.
Page 68
O SILENCE of the infinite Soul, Settle in my heart; Make each beat of its mortal hour A fathomless part
Of thy unimaginable deep; My growing mood, A motionless inscrutable fire Of thy solitude,
Unmarred by the foam of timeless waves That rise and fall Along a verge of wandering dream Beyond earth's call.
The luminous distances of life Slowly retire From the interruptions of dim thought Into a higher
Existence, where for ever cease All cry and stress And vain shadows in a rhythmic sea Of inwardness.
Page 69
CREATION like a fair Offers all things From a childs toy to the suns Space-haunted wings
To our bound mortality. Our dream of a life Tasting the infinite bliss Seems but a brief
Thought-mist dying away Beyond days edge: For soon there follows Nights Dragon image
That grips within its claws The seed of light, Till an omnipotence Crowned with a white
Immortal memory Comes to awake From frozen somnolence The germinal streak.
Then the coiled serpent-fire Rises again Into its rapturous heaven Without a strain
Of time's flame-wavering mood, And a new birth Begins from the travail Of aspiring earth.
Page 70
I HAVE waited for thee to come, O minstrel-bird, Into my life's white dome With thy prophetic word.
Time flows and leaves no sign Of its aimless haste On my brooding silence-line That follows a quest
Eternal; never it ends But in a high Sun-gold beauty that bends Like a burdened sky
On earth with a dream-caress And fills each beat With ecstasies measureless Pressed by her feet.
The shadow-spaces behind My heart's lone mood Mirror the fathomless Mind On their dim-hued
Vision and then awake Like a swan asleep From its frozen still lake To an aureoled deep.
Page 71
These haloed immensities Invade the soul With their foam-white rush of seas: Suddenly unroll
Mystery on mystery, Each bearing a Word Of primal secrecy That never was heard
Before by mortal ear; But nowit brings, From an invisible sphere On flaming wings,
Wonder-epiphanies Of an unseen Face, Wrapping my loneliness In a vast embrace.
Page 72
I BEAR a subtle voice within my heart, A silent power my will cannot ignore; It calls me to a vastness where Thou art, A flaming sun beyond earth's sombre door.
Life's wanderer sails of thought drifting in each wind Grow still on a transparent sea of hush In the immensity of thy fathomless mind: I am filled with light-caress in a ery rush.
The joy and grief of Natures flickering moods, The search of passion in her wayless maze, Are shadows forgotten by a soul that broods On a rapturous Presence and a timeless Face.
I am awake to thy call and feel a high Sense of omnipotence in my human frame, While the whole universe seems to be a cry To the apocalypt-vision of thy Name.
A crust has given way and I behold, No more enslaved to earth's mortality, That Thou hast made my body into a gold Vessel of the sun-wine of thy ecstasy.
Page 73
A FIRE rises towards the height of God; A fower of infinity, it breaks Into a skiey vastitude, silence-shod: The world of stars from its diamond sleep awakes.
The fleeting sparks of. life grow dim, aware Of the hidden glory of an invisible sun That follows the path of time like a flaming prayer Bringing into a high communion
The spirit of earth with fathomless spheres of light. All now is hushed in a calm splendid death, And every sound born from the Infinite By the magic touch of some white germinal breath
Reaches the shore of our mortality. Its rhythmic undertones stirred in our heart Become a fiery universal cry To be a lustrous and immortal part
Of the veiled consciousness that leads unknown The vast creation to its secret goal. Our lonely call of suffering outgrown We gain the heritage of the eternal Whole.
Page 74
WITHIN the flaming circles of my thought New seeds of vision grow; From the heart of timeless silences they are brought In a rain of rapture-glow.
The grey moments of life no more can veil The moon-bright face of God; My dreams sing to him like Heaven's nightingale, Far from this earth-abode
On a soul-solitary height, where all Our movements find a deep Tranquillity broken by no dim footfall Or murmuring breath of sleep.
A divine beauty wakes now everywhere; Nature becomes a white Altar of Grace, an everlasting prayer Towards the Infinite.
Page 75
I gather fruits of thought on a timeless shore; The measureless silence breaks into a sound, A rhythmic fire that opens a secret door And the treasures of eternity are found.
Life then becomes a constant new delight; All figures and all things express the one Primeval beauty of the. Infinite Lined with the gold of an immortal sun.
My moments pass with moon-imprinted sail Leaving behind an emptiness of dream, Where mortal breath reflects a shadow-pale Vision of the invisible Supreme.
They grow out of their sombre dwelling-cave Into the Wide heaven of the luminous Whole, Till every movement is a diamond wave Upon the tranquil ocean of the Soul.
Page 76
THE breath of life is a flame mystery That circles towards a hidden altitude, A spark, a movement of eternity And in its occult seed a veiled Godhood.
Creation is a child of God-delight; Born from illimitable seas of sound It turns to its tranquil source in the Infinite Escaping from the monotone of Time's round.
The mystic Light that shines in every heart Climbs towards an unknown solitary Sun And joins its own immortal counterpart Accomplished in that timeless union.
Thus all things born pass into a divine Nothingness and reach that single Bliss again Whence they sprang like stars on a nebulous sky-line, A fathomless beauty in a sphere of pain.
Page 77
IN the silent spaces of my thought A glow of unknown beauty falls; White dreams of moon-edged spheres have brought A diamond sleep within their walls.
I stand on the worlds lonely verge And look across its timeward shore, Where the heart's eagle-winged urge Rises beyond earth's sombre door
In a flaming ecstasy of light, And from the unseen vastitude Comes down the formless Infinite On the altar of our humanhood.
He takes a shadowy mortal shape; But fathomless immensities With an omnipotent power drape His body's limitless mysteries,
And his giant soul's inscrutable fire Awakes from the motionless depth of night A secret sun, and we aspire Like a prayer on a solitary height
To grow into a life divine Crowned by a gold eternity, Where every moment is the shine Of his splendour in a timeless sky.
Page 78
THY sky is a blue fire, Aglow in the night; What eternities are piled On its starry height!
Earth's clamour fails to reach Its tranquil shore; Only the billows of time Circle ever more.
And world on world is cast From its sleepless whirl And a lustre within its heart Glows like a pearl
In a still secrecy Breathed by sun and moon From the bright solitude Of the Timeless-swoon.
The sky is a gold fire Of starry dust From heaven's immensities Wrought, lone and hushed.
Page 79
O FLICKERING stars, perched on a granite poise of sky, Drop from your heaven-assailing height Myriad-hued dreams on slumbering earth-memory Edged with a dimly throbbing night.
Bring on the billows of your fathomless diamond seas Echoes of far infinity Into the dark grey margins of our silences, Their pages of colourless history.
Lift us from narrow circles of our life To your deep mystery-chanting choir Beyond our altars shadow-rapt flames pale and brief, Of your soul-gripping song unaware.
Leave in the stillness of our grey-haunted shore Trails of your Spirits moon-pearled glow, And write in our sand-emptiness the mystic lore Scrolled on your sapphire-luminous brow.
Page 80
IT is the life within That makes life beautiful: Only the soul can win The love of God and rule
Over the titan throng That bars our heavenly flight With forces triple strong Veiling the Infinite.
Orbed with the glow we come From far infinity, But in earth's martyrdom We lose the memory.
We travail in the dark For ages and alone, Till the sun-luminous streak Resumes again its own
Supremacy and tears The shadow-cloak of time That our lost Spirit wears, Revealing the Sublime.
Page 81
TWO strange inscrutable eyes, Two frail transparent hands, Shape now our destinies; But their force none understands.
For how can human sight Peer into her fathomless Mysteries beyond the light Of our dim consciousness?
Each movement of her feet And smile of her face divine Moves every fire-heart-beat As with a glowing wine.
The vast creation bears The grandeur of her soul; And our veiled spirit shares Her splendours aureole.
Her immortal bliss we drink And shine from hour to hour With her beauty on the brink Of her eternal Power.
Page 82
ETERNITIES are crowded in a seed, While the White hush of long centuries Breaks into sudden fire of delight On the immutable peak of secrecies.
A Viewless throb of wings beneath a star, And luminous shadows hovering around A vision-haunted sky come wrapt within The vast deep network of a primal sound.
The history of thought from a Silence born That lives invisible to mortal gaze, Is focussed to a point burdened with the dream Of an inscrutable and rapturous face.
My lone existence is a diamond spark United to His sun-immensity Behind the veil of time and follows its path Along an edge of unknown destiny,
Till from life's fathomless depth awakes the soul Into a rhythmic universe of Light And the two extremities of heaven and earth Merge in the timeless heart of the Infinite.
Page 83
AT earth's far end I sat alone Upon a jutting slab of stone, And watched the blue infinity Carrying its strange mystery.
I saw fall on its breath of foam An opal hush from twilight's dome, I saw night wrap in starry veils The folds of the moon-crested sails.
A shining figure from the sea With golden wings came near to me And said, Down in my wonder-deep White dreams and pearled visions sleep
Under a dark eternal seal; To those who plunge I can reveal Immortal splendours of sun and moon Flowing from my cave of timeless swoon.
Throw off the earth's yoke from thy soul, My jewelled kingdoms shall unroll Beyond thy dream-gaze and be thine, Crowned with my measureless boons divine.
He vanished in the slumbrous night, But left a Zone of heavenly light Around me and my whole being and sense Filled with his haloed magnificence.
Page 84
With break of dawn the vision passed From memory and I was cast Into the whirl of time's abyss, Its wheel of circling histories.
But to my eyes the Wide world seemed Like a dry seed; a grey sheath gleamed Over its surface weary and old; Life lay in deaths invisible hold.
Within by a fire and stillness pressed I turned to my Spirits ultimate quest In the inviolable shrine of God: I made his Vast my lone abode.
Page 85
MY passions one by one turn towards thee Like stars in midnights silence; peacefully They lie on the altar of a silver dream To be cast into a vision of the Supreme.
The hidden voices of the earth arise Into a circle of vast mysteries, Unimaginable strange solitudes Where the visage of an infinite beauty broods.
All joy of life is now a shining part Of the ecstasy of the eternal Heart, Where time is a voyage with wide unfurled wings, The flame-sails of unknown awakenings.
Page 86
THY rapturous presence I adore In my secluded heart: It grows like a sun ever more And makes my spirit a part
Of thy heaven-worshipped loneliness, Where pale moth-crowds of thought And flux of time in a fathomless Rhythm of hush are wrought.
My days are changed into a gold Unquenchable fire of soul That climbs from the body's dragon-hold Towards the timeless Whole.
The caverned distances of my mind Are filled with an incense-breath Of beauty blown by a crystal wind From a land of aureoled Death.
And now I see around my deep Reverie an endless ow Of ecstasy from thy white sleep Like a mirrored range of snow.
I am a throb of that luminous Vast Beating each fragment-hour In the unknown secrecy glassed Of thy visions eagle power.
Page 87
O BEAUTY, I have sought thee everywhere; But my eyes failed to find thy hidden abode; Then a voice rang through the silver hush of air And I began. my strange journey to God.
Now I have met thy everchanging Face Swayed by a myriad inscrutable moods, Each an expression of thy fathomless grace Showering the supreme beatitudes.
My soul's eternal quest fulfilled in thee, I am to thy heart inseparably bound; Thou hast revealed thy human mystery To my aspiring senses; they are crowned
With visions that penetrate the veil of time Like a gleam of stars piercing a nebulous haze, And bring close to my spirit Gods sublime Beauty sculptured in thy mysterious Face.
Page 91
THOU callest me with thy deep subtle voice Whose still miraculous power I cannot ignore; Irrevocable is my Spirits choice And I belong to the sombre world no more.
Yet like a dragon-cloud its shadow falls Upon my heart and masks the mystic flame That rises up from time's encircling walls Towards the lonely sun-height of thy Name.
I am lost in a wide dreadful gulf of night, A star struggling to climb from a black sea; But wave on wave invades the diamond light And drown in turbulent foam its burning cry.
With outstretched arms Thou comest and thy grace Lifts me and carries like a child along The unknown ways in thy secure embrace, Murmuring in thy bosom like a happy song.
Page 92
I HAVE wandered in the forests of the mind And encountered there fierce beasts of prey Living on natures weaknesses that bind Our freedom to an animal sway.
Within hard rocks of passion is their den Invulnerable like a fort, The strong assaults of the spirit only win Over their timeless rule a short
Victory and we lapse back into our old Pit of stark Self-forgetfulness. Squandering our pittance of a handful of gold, We pray for heaven's omnipotent grace
To lift us from the minds dense slavery, The body's inordinate desire: A way we find out of their tyranny Through the ordeal of the heart's fire
And, master of our nature, live in the soul Whose kingdom is the universe: Mortality no more a beggars bowl Held up for an alms of laughter and tears!
Page 93
I HAVE glimpsed a magic beauty in thy Face; It floats before my sight in tranquil air And turns the silence of my spirit-space To a diamond energy of timeless prayer.
For mortal beauty I can crave no more, Thou art the centre of my universe; And in thy heart I have found the secret door Leading to the ecstasy of the hidden spheres.
My heart begins to open like a rose To the subtle touch of thy mysterious Power; Tinged with imperishable hues it glows Upon the summit of the eternal Hour,
And sings an orison to thy supreme Beauty that moulds my life into a strange Epiphany of thy apocalypt dream, Approached by no wave of human mood and change.
Page 94
A SINGLE smile from thee awakes in us A bliss unknown to worlds of human thought; Losing life's shadow-inconsistencies Our hearts are to a luminous harmony wrought.
Our life and death are thy mysterious boons; Haloed by thy grace an inner beauty glows; Even their wild notes and disparate tunes Blend in thy play like petals of a rose.
Ever we bow to what thy will decides, For unimpeachable is thy secret law; Though from our eyes thy occult purpose hides And we are carried like an aimless straw
On the wide current of thy will, we shall reach Our heaven built with granite rocks of peace On the bright desert of a timeless beach, Washed by the laughter-waves of seven seas.
Page 95
I HAVE drunk deep at the wanton fount of life: Satiate with the ruby-fire of its Wine I turn, a soul consumed by earthly strife, Back Where the way begins to life divine.
From my heart's orbit shadows fall away And a bright solitude is made its base; On the height of thought is seen a diamond ray That links through unseen spheres this wilderness
With a crowned sun whose brilliant majesty Moves this creation on a golden wheel; Beyond the flickering star a rhythmic sea Flows murmuring towards an inviolable
Silence outspread, a radiant limitless shore, From whose borders multitudinous pathways lead Through innumerable arches to a core Of Mystery, creations nucleus-seed.
Page 96
O LIGHT inviolable, shine on the brink Of the earth-memory that I may drink From thy sky-cup the inexhaustible Wine That brims along the Spirits sapphire line.
The burning flight of Mind has sailed around The seerhood of horizonless thought and found Within the circle of the brooding night The timeless visage of the Infinite.
My heart is now a canticle of prayer: It dwells like a pure breath of crystal air Upon a bare peak of tranquillity Amid the foam of a mysterious sea.
I illumine Nature with my loneliness: Poised on eternal calm my deathless days Travel with eagle-wings from deep to deep, Tearing the veil of the Inconscient's sleep.
Page 97
BEYOND Dawns precipice a marvel-swan, Wings in infinity spread, gazes on earth: Mysteries awake from deep oblivion Like stars that ,shine on the edge of a new birth.
New rhythms are cast in shape and voices high Move in tranquillities of fire; the slow Murmurs of the Winds echoing symphony Merge in the cadenced universal ow.
The dark incidents of necessary pain Falling like unescapable blows of fate Leave but a trace of an ephemeral stain On the closed bar of the heart's diamond gate.
Now a flame-vision breaks upon the path That led through myriad curves and dents of space; After the deluge comes its aftermath: A revelation of the apocalypt-face.
Page 98
IN a strange thrill of fire my spirit leaps As I remember thy mysterious face; All beauty seems a spark born from thy grace: Even the dim invisible flame that sleeps
In the cradle of night curtained by nebulous dreams Bears the still secret of thy magic thought; The vast silences of the sky are wrought From thy immutable ecstasy that streams
Like a song through every branching space of air. Thy subtle Presence dwells in every heart, The brooding infinities are a timeless part Of thy Vision and its sun-magnificence share.
My solitude is filled with thy delight; Drinking thy beauty like a passionate wine My flickering mortality grows divine, A shadowless image of the Infinite.
Page 99
I HEAR thy footfalls at my Spirits door, O Beauty, my quest is done; I seek no more. My eyes importunate dwell upon thy Face And drink a cup of ecstasy from each gaze.
Bowing my head at thy immaculate feet I feel that thou controllest every beat Of my human heart by a miraculous power That grows like a young sun from hour to hour.
Thy hands least touch brings back into my mind A deep glimpse of a memory behind The veil of time, when my soul was with thee, An intimate part of thy infinity.
Again into the lone empyrean height I climb like a star from the abyss of night To find in thee my lost primeval home, Escaping from earth's mortal martyrdom.
Page 100
IN an embowered silence of the woods The fruits of mortal passion grow; Life with its many-coloured hidden moods Bears on its waves of silver flow
The rich delight of an invisible fire, Whose wandering flames of mystery Are tinged with hues of an unknown desire Born from abysses of secrecy.
A spark of the Infinite, our pilgrim-life Travels through realms of light and shade Where all intensities are but a brief Footfall of faery dream and fade.
But out of some deep hollow wakes a sound That echoes past the cycle of time; Beyond the impenetrable Veil is found The immortal hush of the Sublime.
Page 101
UPON my tree of Vision settles a bird From the far diamond forests of the sky; Each single branch is magically stirred By sun-wing-beats into strange ecstasy.
Its seeds of passion grow to luminous fruits That draw immortal sap from the breast of earth And the clustered tentacles of the gnarled roots Quiver with the spirit urge to a new birth.
The dead bark falls and leaves a fresh desire To leap within, throb upon rhythmic throb; The decadent leaves are burnt in white soul-fire To make room for a fairer glistening robe.
Upon a bank of timeless thought it stands, Spreading fan-wise its boughs of emerald light, And drinks the wine of beauty from sun-gold hands That hold the inverted cup of the Infinite.
Page 102
I COME from deeps of untrodden snow, A winter-bird; Each note of mine is a silver glow, A magic word. My plumes are spangled with the dew Of heavenly flowers; By my Wing-waft nights and days renew Their fruitful hours. Life's tragic shows are brought by my pale Rejected feathers; Carried by the drift of an autumn gale Beyond the tethers Of my moon-white thought, they reach this globe And run like fires That sway and sweep, a blazing robe Of earth-desires. In a cool shower my nectarous song Falls on the grass: A myriad beauty of flowers throng Dancing where was Only scorched earth. Then is fulfilled My supreme truth, For life and death are secrets sealed Of eternal Youth.
Page 103
AMID nights flickering mirth a sky-winged Thought Dreams of the gold citadel of the Sun; Infinity holds like a fiery dot The beauty of its world-dominion.
Spark upon spark lighting the eternal way, Leaps from the horizon of a secret Deep, While heavenward moments of earth's mortal day Fly from the clutches of time's dragon sleep.
The spaces are besieged with diamond trails; Across a solitude of mystic night A poignant cry of spirit-fire assails The high impregnable dome of the Infinite.
Page 104
I BEAR upon a mirror of tranquil space The imperishable beauty of thy Face And every little gesture and shining mood, O mortal figure of Infinitude!
We meet here upon earth's dim flickering shore Forgetful of our past that with barred door Locks in its memories and are born anew Like stranger stars in skies of an unknown blue.
But in a sudden moment is revealed Our intimate kinship through dark slumber-stied Centuries; we know ourselves a part of thee Under the brief veil of humanity.
Now the long mists of time have ceased to brood Upon the brink of my heart's visionhood; My seeds of consciousness grow one by one Into a fire-awakening of the Sun.
Page 105
OUT of a burning row of candle-stars New flames of vision climb Towards the silence of the magic bars And the choir of the Sublime.
The shadow-spaces of the sky are fraught With a transparent peace, Bearing an infinity of voiceless thought In their heart's memories.
Within the tranquil Spirits fathomless deep A strange beauty is found; It shines through a beatitude of sleep, Its fires of rhythmic sound
Blaze through the subtle spheres in an ecstasy Of inarticulate prayer: Nature becomes a song of eternity And breathes immortal air.
Page 106
UPON mortalitys shore breaks a God-dawn That shall compel the soul's inviolable fire From time's interminable round withdrawn Towards the infinite Glory to aspire.
Immortal beauty on creations sky Shall quiver with intimate rhythms of this divine Silence of an entranced eternity, And earth become a cup of nectarous wine
Brimming with a rapturous foam of gold delight; Each flame-born thought shall rise beyond the grey Horizon of impenetrable night To meet the grandeur of a timeless Day.
And all our mortal dreams shall tinge with a streak Of the deathless Vision, Natures tired sleep Pass like a breath and everywhere shall break A new Dawn from the Spirits fathomless deep.
Page 107
THY Presence wraps me with a subtle glow, Inspiring all my movements from behind; Even the imperceptible breaths that ow In my still sleep bear thy white hush of Mind.
I draw from thy Spirits inexhaustible source A wealth of beauty that illumes each mood And opens one by one the secret doors Behind which burns the spark of thy Godhood.
Now all my moments, born from thy delight, Are each a star that wheels around thy Face, A timeless sun-Visage of the Infinite, Embodiment of His immortal Grace.
Day after day I come closer to thee Until dividing space shall disappear, And sharing thy Vision of eternity I see the lone universe like a diamond tear.
Page 108
TOWARDS the worship of thy sacred face My silver moments travel silently And live upon a mystic height of space Like stars glowing with unknown ecstasy.
O timeless beauty, Spirits immortal Bride, Visit the lonely edge of the mortal shore; Within my soul's transparent calm abide, Open to Infinity time's leaden door.
Bring to my earthly lips thy secret wine, It shall brim from my heart's cup in golden foam; Drinking, my life's desires shall grow divine And nd in thee their lost primeval home.
Beyond the farthest leap of thought I speed Like an arrow voyaging through an air of dream; Beauty unimaginable, intercede Between earth's joy and the Ecstasy supreme,
Page 109
I STRAIN my mortal eyes to hear thy voice Sweet and elusive like most subtle air: Only an inmost silence and wide poise Those deep intangible melodies can share.
Inorbed by thy spirits inexhaustible peace I tread an unknown solitary way To the heart's vast horizonless release And the changeless beauty of immortal Day.
I have left behind the lonely shore of earth; Dead are her brooding thoughts, her clay desires: I have become a glory of sun-birth That with outstretched arms of prayer to thee aspires.
Open to a new vision, now my eyes Find a strange joy in each ephemeral thing; And life no more a veil of mysteries, But a shadowless ecstasy of awakening.
Page 110
AGREY line of old memory recedes Before the rumour of dawn-awakening, And from my heart break out the aming seeds Of light in an immaculate offering.
Earth finds in me her Spirits intimate voice, And all her hopes are moulded through my clay; The fleetest silver wings of thought rejoice To y into my visions Widening day.
The silken garb of night veils now no more Her soul's eternal beauty; a sudden stream Of splendour drifts along time's lonely shore: We feel through life's interminable dream
The voiceless grandeur of the Infinite, And are inhabitants of a universe, Where every form is a symbol of delight Shining like a star on the brink of mystic shores.
Page 111
WHAT world of power you hold in your mortal hands, O beauty imperishable of heaven's Mood! On the wonder-verge of earth your figure stands Like a sun crowning the sky-solitude.
We follow our time-grey round and cannot see The Infinites splendour mirrored in your face, Or feel you bear our pale mortality Like a weary child in your fathomless embrace.
The kingdom of your light you now have brought That its immortal treasures we may share And grow beyond the passionate fire of thought Into a universe of tranquil prayer.
Everywhere now is heard the ardent cry That you have wakened in each yearning soul: In you we find our dream of eternity And capture in your heart God's limitless whole.
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