-72_The Rishi.htm

(King Manu in the former ages of the world, when the Arctic continent still  subsisted, seeks knowledge from the Rishi of the Pole who after long baffling him with conflicting side-lights of the knowledge, reveals to him what it chiefly concerns man to know.)

 

MANU

Rishi who trance-held on the mountains old
        Art slumbering, void
Of sense or motion, for in the spirit's hold
       Of unalloyed
Immortal bliss thou dreamst protected! Deep
       Let my voice glide
Into thy dumb retreat and break that sleep
      Abysmal. Hear!
The frozen snows that heap thy giant bed
       Ice-cold and clear,
The chill and desert heavens above thee spread
       Vast, austere,
Are not so sharp but that thy warm limbs brook
       Their bitter breath,
Are not so wide as thy immense outlook
       On life and death:
Their vacancy thy silent mind and bright
       Outmeasureth.
But ours are blindly active and thy light
       We have forgone.

RISHI

Who art thou, warrior armed gloriously
        Like the sun? .
Thy gait is as an empire and thine eye
        Dominion.

MANU

King Manu, of the Aryan peoples lord,
        Greets thee, Sage.

Page – 297

RISHI

I know thee, King, earth to whose sleepless sword
          Was heritage.
The high Sun's distant glories gave thee forth
          On being's edge:
Where the slow skies of the auroral North
          Lead in the morn
And flaming dawns for ever on heaven's verge
         Wheel and turn,
Thundering remote the clamorous Arctic surge
          Saw thee born.
There 'twas thy lot these later Fates to build,
          This race of man
New-fashion. 0 Watcher with the mountains wild,
         The icy plain,
Thee I too, asleep, have watched, both when the Pole
         Was brightening wan
And when like a wild beast the darkness stole
          Prowling and slow
Alarming with its silent march the soul.
          0 King, I know
Thy purpose; for the vacant ages roll
          Since man below
Conversed with God in friendship. Thou, reborn
           For men perplexed,
Seekest in this dim aeon and forlorn
          With evils vexed
The vanished light. For like this Artic land
           Death has annexed
To sleep, our being's summits cold and grand
          Where God abides,
Repel the tread of thought. I too, 0 King,
           In winds and tides
Have sought Him, and in armies thundering,
           And where Death strides
Over whole nations. Action, thought and peace
           Were questioned, sleep,
And waking, but I had no joy of these,
            Nor ponderings deep,                                            

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And pity was not sweet enough, nor good
            My will could keep.
Often I found Him for a moment, stood
           Astonished, then
It fell from me. I could not hold the bliss,
           The force for men,
My brothers. Beauty ceased my heart to please,
           Brightness in vain
Recalled the vision of the light that glows
           Suns behind:
I hated the rich fragrance of the rose;
           Weary and blind,
I tried of the suns and stars; then came
           With broken mind
To heal me of the rash devouring flame,
           The dull disease,
And sojourned with this mountain's summits bleak,
           These frozen seas.
King, the blind dazzling snows have made me meek,
          Cooled my unease.
Pride could not follow, nor the restless will
          Come and go;
My mind within grew holy, calm and still
          Like the snow.

MANU

O thou who wast with chariots formidable
          And with the bow!
Voiceless and white the cold unchanging hill,
          Has it then
A mightier presence, deeper mysteries
         Than human men?
The warm low hum of crowds, towns, villages,
         The sun and rain,
The village maidens to, the water bound,
         The happy herds,
The fluting of the shepherd lads, the sound
         Myriad of birds,
Speak these not clearer to the heart, convey
         More subtle words?

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Here is but great dumb night, an awful day
          Inert and dead.

RISHI

The many's voices fill the listening ear,
          Distract the head:
The One is silence; on the snows we hear
           Silence tread.

MANU

What hast thou garnered from the crags that lour,
           The icy field?

RISHI

0 King, I spurned this body's death; a Power
           There was, concealed,
That raised me. Rescued from the pleasant bars
           Our longings build,
My winged soul went up above the stars
           Questing for God.

MANU

Oh, didst thou meet Him then? in what bright field
           Upon thy road?

RISHI

I asked the heavenly wanderers as they wheeled
            For His abode.

MANU

Could glorious Saturn and his rings of hue
            Direct thy flight?

RISHI

Sun could not tell, nor any planet knew
            Its source of light,
Nor could I glean that knowledge though I paced
           The worlds beyond
And into outer nothingness have gazed.
            Time's narrow sound

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I crossed, the termless flood where on the Snake
            One slumbers throned,
Attempted. But the ages from Him break
           Blindly and Space
Forgets its origin. Then I returned
           Where luminous blaze
Deathless and ageless in their ease unearned
            The ethereal race.

MANU

Did the gods tell thee? Has Varuna seen
            The high God's face?

RISHI

How shall they tell of Him who marvel at sin
             And smile at grief?

MANU

Did He not send His blissful Angels down
             For thy relief?

RISHI

The Angels know Him not, who fear His frown,
             Have fixed belief.

MANU

Is there no heaven of eternal light
            Where He is found?

RISHI

The heavens of the Three have beings bright
             Their portals round,
And I have journeyed to those regions blest,
             Those hills renowned.
In Vishnu's house where wide Love builds his nest,
              My feet have stood.

MANU

Is he not That, the blue-winged Dove of peace,
               Father of Good?

Page – 301

 RISHI

Nor Brahma, though the suns and hills and seas
              Are called his brood.

MANU

Is God a dream then? are the heavenly coasts
              Visions vain?

RISHI

I came to Shiva's roof; the flitting ghosts
              Compelled me in.

MANU

Is He then God whom the forsaken seek,
              Things of sin? .

RISHI

He sat on being's summit grand, a peak
               Immense of fire.

MANU

Knows He the secret of release from tears
               And from desire?

RISHI

His voice is the last murmur silence hears,
               Tranquil and dire.

MANU

The silence calls us then and shall enclose?

RISHI

                Our true abode
Is here and in the pleasant house He chose
                To harbour God.

MANU

In vain thou hast travelled the unwonted stars
                And the void hast trod! 

Page – 302

RISHI

King, not in vain. I knew the tedious bars
              That I had fled,
To be His arms whom I have sought; I saw
              How earth was made
Out if his being; I perceived the Law,
              The Truth, the Vast,
From which we came and which we are; I heard
              The ages past
Whisper their history, and I knew the Word
              That forth was cast
Into the unformed potency of things
               To build the suns.
Through endless Space and on Time's iron wings
               A rhythm runs
Our lives pursue, and till the strain's complete
               That now so moans
And falters, we upon this greenness meet,
               That measure tread.

MANU

Is earth His seat? this body His poor bold
                  Infirmly made?

RISHI

I flung off matter like a robe grown old;
                 Matter was dead.

MANU

Sages have told of vital force behind:
                 It is God then?

RISHI

The vital spirits, move but as a wind
                 Within men.

MANU

Mind then is lord that like a sovereign sways
                 Delight and pain?

Page – 303

RISHI

Mind is His wax to write and, written, rase
                 Form and name.

MANU

Is thought not He who has immortal eyes
                 Time cannot dim?

RISHI

Higher, 0 King, the still voice bade me rise
                Than thought's clear dream.
Deep in the luminous secrecy, the mute
                 Profound of things,
Where murmurs never sound of harp or lute
                And no voice sings,
Light is not, nor our darkness, nor these bright
                Thunderings,
In the deep steady voiceless core of white
                And burning bliss,
The sweet vast centre and the cave divine
                 Called Paradise,
He dwells within us all who dwells not in
                  Aught that is.

MANU

Rishi, thy thoughts are like the blazing sun
                 Eye cannot face.
How shall our souls on that bright awful One
                 Hope even to gaze
Who lights the world from His eternity
                With a few rays?

RISHI

Dare on thyself to look, thyself art He,
                O Aryan, then.
There is no thou nor I, beasts of the field,
               Nor birds, nor men,
But flickerings on a many-sided shield
               Pass and remain,

Page – 304

And this winged and that with poisonous tongue
               Hissing coils.
We love ourselves and hate ourselves, are wrung
               With woes and toils
To slay ourselves or from ourselves to win
                Shadowy spoils.
And through it all, the rumour and the din,
                Voices roam,
Voices of harps, voices of rolling seas,
                That rarely come
And to our inborn old affinities
               Callus home.
Shadows upon the many-sided Mind
               Arrive and go,
Shadows that shadows see; the vain pomps wind
                Above, below,
While in their hearts the single mighty God
                Whom none can know,
Guiding the mimic squadrons with His nod
                Watches it all-
Like transient shapes that sweep with half-guessed truth
                A luminous wall.

MANU

Alas! is life then vain? Our gorgeous youth
                Lithe and tall,
Our sweet fair women with their tender eyes
               Outshining stars,
The mighty meditations of the wise,
               The grandiose wars,
The blood, the fiery strife, the clenched dead hands,
               The circle sparse,
The various labour in a hundred lands,
               Are all these shows
To please some audience cold? as in a vase
               Lily and rose,
Mixed snow and crimson, for a moment blaze
               Till someone throws
The withered petals in some outer dust,
                Heeding not, -

Page - 305

The virtuous man made one with the unjust,Is this our lot?

RISHI

0 King, sight is not vain, nor any sound.
               Weeds that float
Upon a puddle and the majestic round
                Of the suns
Are thoughts eternal, - what man loves to laud
                And what he shuns;
Through glorious things and base the wheel of God
                For ever runs.
0 King, no thought is vain; our very dreams
               Substantial are;
The light we see in fancy, yonder gleams
                In the star.

MANU

Rishi, are we both dreams and real? the near
                Even as the far?

RISHI

Dreams are we not, 0 King, but see dreams, fear
               Therefore and strive.
Like poets in a wondrous world of thought
               Always we live,
Whose shapes from out ourselves to being brought
               Abide and thrive.
The poet from his vast and labouring mind
               Brings brilliant out
A living world; forth into space they wind,
                The shining rout,
And hate and love, and laugh and weep, enjoy,
                 Fight and shout,
King, lord and beggar, tender girl and boy,
                 Foemen, friends;
So to His creatures God's poetic mind
                 A substance lends.
The Poet with dazzling inspiration blind,
                Until it ends,

Page – 306

---

Forgets Himself and lives in what He forms;
                For ever His soul
Through chaos like a wind creating storms,
                Till the stars roll
Through ordered space and the green lands arise,
                The snowy Pole,
Ocean and this great heaven full of eyes,
                And sweet sounds heard,
Man with his wondrous soul of hate and love,
                And beast and bird, -
Yes, He creates the worlds and heaven above
                With a single word;
And these things being Himself are real, yet
                Are they like dreams, .
For He awakes to self He could forget
                In what He seems.
Yet, King, deem nothing vain: through many veils
                This Spirit gleams.
The dreams of God are truths and He prevails.
                Then all His time
Cherish thyself, 0 King, and cherish men,
                Anchored in Him.

MANU

Upon the silence of the sapphire main
             Waves that sublime
Rise at His word and when that fiat's stilled
              Are hushed again,
So is it, Rishi, with the Spirit concealed,
              Things and men?

RISHI

Hear then the Truth. Behind this visible world
              The eyes see plain,
Another stands, and in its folds are curled
              Our waking dreams.
Dream is more real, which, while here we wake,
              Unreal seems.
From that our mortal life and thoughts we take.
               Its fugitive gleams

Page – 307

---

Are here made firm and solid; there they float
               In a magic haze,
Melody swelling note on absolute note,
               A lyric maze,
Beauty on beauty heaped pell-mell to chain
               The enchanted gaze,
Thought upon mighty thought with grandiose strain
              Weaving the stars.
This is that world of dream from which our race
              Came; by these bars
Of body now enchained, with laggard pace,
               Borne down with cares,
A little of that rapture to express
              We labour hard,
A little of that beauty, music, thought
              With toil prepared;
And if a single strain is clearly caught,
               Then our reward
Is great on earth, and in the world that floats
                Lingering awhile
We hear the fullness and the jarring notes
               Reconcile, -
Then travel forwards. So we slowly rise,
               And every mile
Of our long journey mark with eager eyes;
                So we progress
With gurge of revolution and recoil,
               Slaughter and stress
Of anguish because without fruit we toil,
               Without success;
Even as a ship upon the stormy flood
With fluttering sails
Labours towards the shore; the angry mood
               Of Ocean swells,
Calms come and favouring winds, but yet afar
                The harbour pales
In evening mists and Ocean threatens war:
                 Such is our life.
Of this be sure, the mighty game goes on,
                The glorious strife,

Page – 308

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Until the goal predestined has been won.
                Not on the cliff
To be shattered has our ship set forth of old,
               Nor in the surge
To founder. Therefore, King, be royal, bold,
               And through the urge
Of winds, the reboant thunders and the close
                Tempestuous gurge
Press on for ever laughing at the blows
               Of wind and wave.
The haven must be reached; we rise from pyre,
                We rise from grave,
We mould our future by our past desire,
                We break, we save,
We find the music that we could not find,
                The thought think out
We could not then perfect, and from the mind
                That brilliant rout
Of wonders marshal into living forms.
                 End then thy doubt;
Grieve not for wounds, nor fear the violent storms,
                  For grief and pain
Are errors of the clouded soul; behind
                 They do not stain
The living spirit who to these is blind.
                  Torture, disdain,
Defeat and sorrow give him strength and joy:
                  'Twas for delight
He sought existence, and if pains alloy,
                  'Tis here in night
Which we call day. The Yogin knows, 0 King,
                   Who in his might
Travels beyond the mind's imagining,
                   The worlds of dream.
For even they are shadows, even they
                   Are not, - they seem.
Behind them is a mighty blissful day
                    From which they stream.
The heavens of a million creeds are these:
                     Peopled they teem

Page - 309

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By creatures full of joy and radiant ease.
                 There is the mint
From which we are the final issue, types
                 Which here we print
In dual letters. There no torture grips,
                  Joy cannot stint
Her streams, - beneath a more than mortal sun
                 Through golden air
The spirit of the deathless regions run.
                  But we must dare
To still the mind into a perfect sleep
                  And leave this lair
Of gross material flesh which we would keep
                  Always, before
The guardians of felicity will ope
                  The golden door.
That is our home and that the secret hope
                 Our hearts explore.
To bring those heavens down upon the earth
                  We all descend,
And fragments of it in the human birth
                  We can command.
Perfect millenniums are sometimes, until
                 In the sweet end
All secret heaven upon earth we spill,
                 Then rise above
Taking mankind with us to the abode
                  Of rapturous Love,
The bright epiphany whom we name God,
                  Towards whom we drove
In spite of weakness, evil, grief and pain.
                  He stands behind
The worlds of Sleep; He is and shall remain
                 When they grow blind
To individual joys; for even these
                  Are shadows, King,
And gloriously into that lustre cease
                  From which they spring.
We are but sparks of that most perfect fire,
                  Waves of that sea: 

Page – 310

From Him we come, to Him we go, desire
                Eternally,
And so long as He wills, our separate birth
                 Is and shall be.
Shrink not from life, 0 Aryan, but with mirth
                And joy receive
His good and evil, sin and virtue, till
                 He bids thee leave.
But while thou livest, perfectly fulfil
                 Thy part, conceive
Earth as thy stage, thyself the actor strong,
                  The drama His.
Work, but the fruits to God alone belong,
                   Who only is.
Work, love and know, - so shall thy spirit win
                    Immortal bliss.
Love men, love God. Fear not to love, 0 King,
                    Fear not to enjoy;
For Death's a passage, grief a fancied thing
                   Fools to annoy.
From self escape and find in love alone
                   A higher joy.

MANU

O Rishi, I have wide dominion,
                The earth obeys
And heaven opens far beyond the sun
                Her golden gaze.
But Him I seek, the still and perfect One, -
               The Sun, not rays.

RISHI

Seek Him upon the earth. For thee He set
                In the huge press
Of many worlds to build a mighty state
                 For man's success,
Who seeks his goal. Perfect thy human might,
                 Perfect the race.
For thou art He, 0 King. Only the night
                 Is on thy soul

Page – 311

By thy own will. Remove it and recover
               The serene whole
Thou art indeed, then raise up man the lover
               To God the goal.

Page – 312