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Page 1 of 31904 · PDF PAGE 89
APPENDIX II 82 The first day, a camel; The second day, a kiss; The third daty, a star-glass; The fourth day, a beetle’s wing; The fifth day, a crab; The sixth day, a bow; The seventh day, a quiver; The eighth day, a stag; The ninth day, an horn; The tenth day, a sandal of silver; The eleventh day, a silver box of white sandal wood; The twelfth day, a whisper; The thirteenth day, a black cat; The fourteenth day, a phial of white gold; The fifteenth day, an egg-shell cut in two; The sixteenth day, a glance; The seventeenth day, an honeycomb; The …
1904 · PDF PAGE 28
ASCENSION DAY 21 That worthy Yankee millionaire, And wealthy nephews, young and fair, The pleasing Crawfords ! Lost ! Lost ! Lost !78 “The Holy Spirit, friend ! beware !” Ah ! ten days yet to Pentecost ! Come that, I promise you—but stay ! At present ’tis Ascension Day ! At least your faith should be content. I quarrel not with this event. The supernatural element ? I deny nothing—at the term It is just Nothing I affirm. The fool (with whom is wisdom, deem The Scriptures—rightly !) in his heart Saith (silent, to himself, apart) This secret : “\…
1904 · PDF PAGE 14
ASCENSION DAY 7 Panel* in libel I bewail me! (Funny how English seems to fail me!) So, as a surgeon to a man, sir, Let me excise your Christian cancer Impersonally, without vanity, Just in pure love of poor humanity ! Here’s just the chance you’d have ! Behold The warm sun tint with early gold Yon spire : to-day’s event provide My text of wrath—Ascension-tide ! Oh ! ’tis a worthy day to wrest Hate’s diadem from Jesus’ Crest ! Ascends he ? ’Tis the very test By which we men may fairly judge, From the rough roads we mortals trudge Or God’s paths …
1904 · PDF PAGE 66
NOTES 59 Browning to be called “Ascension Day and Pentecost” was conceived (and resolved upon) on Friday, November 15, 1901. On that day I left Ceylon, where I had been for several months, practising Hindu meditations, and exposing the dishonesty of the Missionaries, in the intervals of big game shooting. The follow-ing day I wrote “Ascension Day,” and “Pente-cost” on the Sunday, sitting outside the dak-bangala at Madura. These original drafts were small as compared to the present poems. Ascension Day consisted of :— p. 2,* I flung . . . p. 4, …
1904 · PDF PAGE 92
…n- tain of the Caves. He took with him his Son, 2 a Lam b, Life, and Strength, for these four were the Key s of that Mountain. So by ten days and fifty days and two hundred day s and yet ten days he went forth. After ten day s fell a thunderbolt, whirling through black clouds of rain: after sixty the road split in two, but he travelled on both at once: after two hundred and sixty, the sun drove away the rain, and the Star shone in the day-time, making it Night. After the last day came his Mother, his Redeem er, and Him self ; and joining togeth…
1904 · PDF PAGE 29
22 P E N T E C O S T TO-DAY thrice halves the lunar week Since you, indignant, heard me speak Indignant. Then I seemed to be So far from Christianity ! Now, other celebrations fit The time, another song shall flit Responsive to another tune. September’s shadow falls on June, But dull November’s darkest day Is lighted by the sun of May. Here’s now I got a better learning. It’s a long lane that has no turning ! Mad as a woman-hunted Urning, The lie-chased alethephilist :* Sorcery’s maw gulps the beginner : In Pain’s mill neophytes are grist : Dis…
1904 · PDF PAGE 27
…ire my life, disturb my peace. I go beneath the outward faith Find it a devil or a wraith, Just as my mood or temper tends ! And thus to-day that “Christ ascends,” I take the symbol, leave the fact Decline to make the smallest pact With your creative Deity, And say : The Christhood-soul in me, Risen of late, is now quite clear Even of the smallest taint of Earth. Supplanting God, the Man has birth (“New Birth” you’ll call the same, I fear,) Transcends the ordinary sphere And flies in the direction “x.” (There lies the fourth dimension.) Vex My …
1904 · PDF PAGE 18
ASCENSION DAY 11 Samadhi-Dak,51 convenient To travel to Maha Meru,52 Or Gaurisankar’s53 keen white wedge Spearing the mighty dome of blue, Or Chogo’s54 mighty flying edge Shearing across the firmament,— But, first, to that exact event You Christians celebrate to-day. We stand where the disciples stood And see the Master float away Into that cloudlet heavenly-hued Receiving him from mortal sight. Which of his sayings prove the true, Lightning-bescrawled athwart the blue ? I say not, Which in hearts aright Are treasured ? but, What after ages Eng…
1904 · PDF PAGE 9
…one tree11 Yclept “Red Cotton Nightcap Country”: How a goldsmith, between the Ravishing Virgin And a leman too rotten to put a purge in, Day by day and hour by hour, In a Browningesque forest of thoughts having lost himself, Expecting a miracle, solemnly tossed himself Off from the top of tower. Moral: don’t spoil such an excellent sport as an Ample estate with a church and a courtesan! “Truth, that’s the gold”12 But don’t worry about it! I, you, or Simpkin13 can get on without it! If life’s task be work and love’s (the soft-lippèd) ease, Death…
1904 · PDF PAGE 11
…he White Beard22 with his son’s blood besprinkled, Carve one more gash in the forehead23 hate-wrinkled:— So, using little arms, earn one day better ones; Cutting the small chains,24 learn soon to unfetter one’s Limbs from the large ones, walk forth and be free!— So much for Browning ! and so much for me ! Pray do not ask me where I stand ! “Who asks, doth err.”25 At least demand No folly such as answer means ! “But if” (you26 say) “your spirit weans Itself of milk-and-water pap, And one religion as another O’erleaps itself and falls on the othe…
1904 · PDF PAGE 95
…In the year of the Great Passing Over were signs and wonders seen of all men, O m y Brethren, as it is written, and well known unto this day. And the first sign was of dancing: for every woman that was under the moon began to dance and was mad, so that headlong and hot-mouthed she flung herself down, desirous. Whence the second sign, that of musical inventions ; for in that year, and of Ros ewomen, came A and U and M,1 the mighty musicians ! And the third sign likewise, namely , of animals : for in that y ear every sheep had lambs thirteen, and…
1904 · PDF PAGE 88
…n starry palaces, and a sword to guard him. Note well also that these children, and those others, are two, being four. And on the sixt h day (for the seven day s were past) he rose and came into his ancient tem ple, a temple of our Holy Order, O my Brethren, wherein sat that Hierophant who had initiated him of old. Now read he well the riddle of the Goat (Blessed be his name among us for ever ! Nay, not for ever !), and therewith the Teacher m ade him a master of Sixfold Chamber, and an ardent Sufferer toward the Blazing Star. F or the S word, …
1904 · PDF PAGE 60
… way to destroy it is by the uprooting of Desire ; nor is a task so formidable accomplished b y a ny t hreepenny- bit-in-the-plate-on-Sunday morality, the “deceive others and self-deception will take care of itself” uprightness, but by the severe roads of austere self-mastery, of arduous scientific research, which constitute the Noble Eightfold Path. 101-105. Theres one. . . Six Six Six.31— This opinion has most recently (and most oppor- tunely) been confirmed by the Rev. Father Simons, Roman Catholic Missionary (and head of the Corner in K as…
1904 · PDF PAGE 76
NOTES 69 688. Christ.56—See Shri Parananda, “Com- mentaries on Matthew and John.” 695. Direction x.57—Vide supra, “Ascension Day.” 710. Steel-tired.58 For Dunlop people did not know Those nineteen hundred years ago. 723. Super-consciousness.59—The Christians also claim an ecstasy. B ut they all admit, and indeed boast, that it is the result of long periods of worry and anxiety about the safety of their precious souls : therefore their ecstasy is clearly a diseased process. The Yogic ecstasy requires absolute calm and health of mind and body. It…
1904 · PDF PAGE 42
…minds ! So mote it be ! I find some folks think me (for one) So great a fool that I disclaim Indeed Jehovah’s hate for shame That man to-day should not be weaned Of worshipping so foul a fiend In presence of the living Sun, And yet replace him oiled and cleaned By the Egyptian Pantheon, The same thing by another name. Thus when of late Egyptian Gods Evoked ecstatic periods In verse of mine, you thought I praised Or worshipped them—I stand amazed. I merely wished to chant in verse Some aspects of the Universe, Summed up these subtle forces finel…
1904 · PDF PAGE 45
…sense; “I have this worthy evidence That things are real, since I cease The painter’s ecstasy of peace, And find them all unchanged.” To-day I cannot brush that doubt away ; It leads to tedious argument Uncertain, in the best event : Unless, indeed, I should invoke The fourth dimension, clear the smoke Psychology still leaves. This question Needs a more adequate digestion. Yet I may answer that the universe Of meditation suffers less From time’s insufferable stress Than that of matter. On, thou puny verse ! Weak tide of rhyme ! Another argument…
1904 · PDF PAGE 24
ASCENSION DAY 17 Tending to final bliss—to stir Some life to better life, this pain Is needful : that I grant again. Did they at last in glory live, Satan and Judas69 might forgive The middle time of misery, Forgive the wrong creation first Or evolution’s iron key Did them—provided they are passed Beyond all change and pain at last Out of this universe accurst. But otherwise ! I lift my voice, Deliberately take my choice Promethean, eager to rejoice, In the grim protest’s joy to revel Betwixt Iscariot and the Devil, Throned in their midst ! No …
1904 · PDF PAGE 44
…; Merely infer it.) Here’s a test ! What in your whole life is the best Of all your memories ? They say You paint—I think you should one day Take me to seek your Studio— Tell me, when all your work goes right, Painted to match some inner light, What of the outer world you know ! Surely, your best work always finds Itself sole object of the mind’s. In vain you ply the brush, distracted By something you have heard or acted. Expect some tedious visitor— Your eye runs furtive to the door ; Your hand refuses to obey ; You throw the useless brush awa…
1904 · PDF PAGE 22
ASCENSION DAY 15 On just belief or unbelief ; And an involuntary act Make difference infinite in fact Between the right and left-hand thief ? Belief is not an act of will !” I think, Sir, that I have you still, Even allowing (much indeed !) That any will at all is freed, And is not merely the result Of sex, environment, and cult, Habit and climate, health and mind, And twenty thousand other things ! So many a metaphysic sings. (I wish they did indeed : I find Their prose the hardest of hard reading.) “But if,” you cry, “the world’s designed As …
1904 · PDF PAGE 80
… towards all mankind—nay , to the smallest grain of dust tossed on the utmost storms of the Sahara ! “Blessed and more blessed ! For one day came a holy Bikkhu from the land of the Peacock,2 and would take up his abode in t he hollow of their very tree. And little Perdu’ R Abu us ed to keep the mosquitoes away with the gossamer of his wings, so that the good man might be at peace. “Now the British Governm ent abode in that land, and when it heard that there was a Bhikkhu living in a tree, and that the v illage folk brought him rice and onions a…