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Page 1 of 21906 · PDF PAGE 64
Incalculably small, its closest cluster Mere milky lustre Staining the infinite darkness! Base and blind Our minion mind Seeks a great light, a light sufficient, light Insufferably bright, So hidden for an hour: imagining This vast vain thing, We call it God, and Father. Empty hand And prayer unplanned Stretch fatuous to the void. Ah! men my friends, What fury sends This folly to intoxicate your hearts? Dread air disparts Your vital ways from these unsavoury follies, Black melancholies Sit straddled on your bended backs. The throne Of the unkno…
1906 · PDF PAGE 106
…wns This being’s high perception, owed Only to Truth; nor beams nor stones Support the Arahat’s abode. Who grasps one truth, beholds one light, Becomes that truth, that light; discedes From dark and deliquescent night, From futile thoughts and fatuous deeds. Your girl, your gems, your mournful tones Irk not perfection with their goad. One thing I know—a set of bones Is travelling on upon this road !” 98
1906 · PDF PAGE 63
EPILOGUE. PRAYER. THE light streams stronger through the lamps of sense. Intelligence Grows as we go. Alas: its icy glimmer Shows dimmer, dimmer The awful vaults we traverse. Were the sun Himself the one Glory of space, he would but illustrate The night of Fate. Are not the hosts of heaven in vain arrayed? Their light dismayed Before the vast blind spaces of the sky? O galaxy Of thousands upon thousands closely curled! Your golden world 55
1906 · PDF PAGE 66
To little children, as the storm-tossed bark Hails in the dark Some hardly visible harbour light; we hold The hours of gold To our own breasts, whose hours are iron and brass :— } So swift they pass And grind us down :—we hold the wondrous light Our scattering sight Yet sees, the one star in a night of woe. We trust, and so Lift up our voices in the dying day Indeed to pray: O little hands that are so soft and strong, Lead us along !
1906 · PDF PAGE 27
… Matter and motion rearrange Their endless coils; the Buddha saith: ‘Cease, O my sons, to desire! Change is the whole that we see By the light of a chaos on fire. Cease to desire—you are free!” _ Your words, good Gotama, are brave and true; Easy to say, but difficult to do! 19
1906 · PDF PAGE 28
… last—a little while and we shall die, O kissable Tarshitering! Droop the long lashes: close the eyes with eyelids like a beetle’s wing! Light the slow smile, ephemeral as ever a painted butterfly, Certain to close into a kiss, certain to fasten on me and sting! 20
1906 · PDF PAGE 54
A heart of love, a crown of light, An infinite music of delight ;— This, but no more; let fancy sway But never fix the transient ray! All things are lawful, so they be At most a marshalled imagery. Dream of Earth's glories higher and higher, Mounting the minaret, desire; Never attaining to the sky, Realization—lest thou die. So dream, possessing all; so dream, Possessing nothing: I esteem These twain as one, since dreams they are. Thus mayst thou journey far and far And far! to climes unguessed, to seas Proud with seignorial argosies, 48
1906 · PDF PAGE 41
…the dice at a sombre game, Game without goal of peace or fame. Sinister, sombre, horrors and hates Lurk in the shadows, under the walls. Light deceives, and the darkness lies. Love there is none; he is child of peace: Joy there is none; she is bride of force: Thought there is none; it is birth:—there fell 35
1906 · PDF PAGE 39
…y then, I’ll tell you it. He wandered in a forest dim. A woodcutter encountered him Where a felled oak required his wit. This man with a light axe did lop The little branches at the top. Then said the poet: ‘‘ Thus why tax Your force? This double-handed axe Were better laid to the tree-trunk.” ** Friend, are you natural, or drunk?” Replied the woodsman; ‘leaf and twig Divert the impact of the big Axe; chop them first, the trunk is fit For a fair aim, a certain hit, 31
1906 · PDF PAGE 81
…ain of skulls wild music clash! Thy bosom bruise my own afresh! Sri Maharani! draw my breath Into the hollow lungs of death! There is no light, nor any motion. There is no mass, nor any sound. Still, in the lampless heart of ocean, Fasten me down and hold me drowned Within thy womb, within thy thought, Where there is naught—where there is naught ! 73
1906 · PDF PAGE 19
…ast and blind Of dark Religion; not on Fate, The barren ocean; but the Child Shows us a beacon in the night; A lens to lure and lend the light. II
1906 · PDF PAGE 65
…nce hope must be, Look to the future, to the chance minute That life may shoot Some flower at least to blossom in the night, Since vital light Is sure to fail us on the hideous way. What? Must we pray? Verily, O thou littlest babe, too weak To stir or speak, Capable hardly of a thought, yet seed Of word and.deed ! To thine assured fruition we may trust This weary dust. We who are old, and palsied, (and so wise !) Lift up our eyes 57
1906 · PDF PAGE 79
…onze! The shuddering of a sudden storm To mix me with thy minions The lost, who wait through endless night, And wait in vain, to see the light. For I am utterly consumed In thee, in thee am broken up. The life upon my lips that bloomed Is crushed into a deadly cup, Whose devilish spirit squats and gloats Upon the thirst that rots our throats. Gape wide, O hideous mouth, and suck — This heart’s blood, drain it down, expunge This sweltering life of mire and muck! Squeeze out my passions as a sponge, a1
1906 · PDF PAGE 113
…igh feeding pays: desire returns. She willing (for a copper rin)? For any ecstasy of sin Gaily embraces me. A room Starts up in the half-light, half-gloom, Perfectly purposed for debauch. In mirrors shines a wicked nautch, And on the floor Hawaian belles Rave in a hula-hula?—Hell’s! Fragonard, Rops, had lined the walls With wild indecent bacchanals, And bawdy photographs attest The Devil’s taste to be the best. 1 Japanese coin worth a small portion of a penny. 2 The indecent dance of the South Seas. 105
1906 · PDF PAGE 72
…lay Its forehead on the sea, and pray Some idle prayer to sunset, or the storm ! Yea! as a cloud in worship-trance Swoons in invisible delight, Let slave and king, let death and dance Shake off their forms, and clothe their light In shrouds of sepulchre, the starless night ! Let song and cry leave tune and tone, Perish uncried and die unsung! Nature, the monotonic moan Roared by the river, thunder alone:— The Hoang-Ho, its note, the monstrous Kung! 64
1906 · PDF PAGE 73
…O’erturn the dark forbidden draught! Give me the taste, the taste unclean Of human flesh and blood that mean Some infinite horror to the light that laughed ! So let the scent of lily and rose, Of jasmine, taggara, pass away! Let patchouli, patchouli, repose My nostrils with your odour gray, Dead darlings exquisite in your decay! So, silk and velvet, fur and skin, Your sensuous touch shall quit me quite: I am at swiving strain with sin— I'll touch the stars, the blood run thin From the torn breast of Night, my mother Night. 65 F
1906 · PDF PAGE 60
…rnace of tremulous blue; We stood on the mystical brink Of the day as it sprang to us through The veil of the night, And the babe of the light Was begotten in the caves of the dew. My lover and I were awake When the noise of the dawn in our ears Burst out like a storm or a snake Or the rush of the Badawi spears. Dawn of desire! But thy kiss was as fire To thy lovers and princes and peers. 52
1906 · PDF PAGE 119
… time the Hell-Wind whistles shrill. The King-Ghost hath no music but their rattling ; No scent but death’s grown faint and fugitive; No light but this their leprous pallor battling Weakly with night. Lord, shall these dry bones live? O keep us in the hour Wherein the King-Ghost hath his power! III
1906 · PDF PAGE 33
Nay, let all light, all things, but cease! Sense is the seal of double rule. The million oracles that run Out of the mouth of God the fool are not myself. To nothing turn! To nothing look! Then, then !—discern Nothing, that one may one remain. So I am paid the horrible pain That these my brothers ordered me. I look upon their brows—I see Signs many and deep of torture past; A star, yon star, true peace at last. (There approach an aged man, riding upon an ass, with a led ass, and a Nubian servant.) The Adept. In the name of God, the One, the Gre…
1906 · PDF PAGE 120
…e-yet.” God, keep us most from ill, , What time the King-Ghost grips the will! Silver and rose and gold what flame resurges? What living light pours forth in emerald waves? What inmost Music drowns the clamorous dirges? —Shrieking they fly, the King-Ghost and his slaves. Lord, let Thy Ghost indwell, And keep us from the power of Hell! | AMEN. 112