Epiphany
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Majestic, mild, immortally august, In silence throned, to just and to unjust One Lord of deep unutterable love, I saw Him, Shiva, like a brooding dove Close-winged upon her nest. The outcaste came, The sinners gathered round that tender Flame, The demons, by the other sterner gods Rejected from their luminous abodes, Gathered around the Refuge of the lost, Soft-smiling on that wild and grisly host. All who were refugeless, wretched, unloved, The wicked and the good together moved Naturally to Him, the asylum sweet, And found their heaven at their Master’s feet. The vision changed and in His place there stood A Terror red as lightning or as blood; His fierce right hand a javelin advanced And, as He shook it, earthquake reeling danced Across the hemisphere, ruin and plague Rained out of heaven, disasters swift and vague Threatened, a marching multitude of ills. His foot strode forward to oppress the hills, And at the vision of His burning eyes The hearts of men grew faint with dread surmise Of sin and punishment; their cry was loud, “O Master of the stormwind and the cloud, Spare, Rudra, spare. Show us that other form Auspicious, not incarnate wrath and storm.” Page-73 The God of Wrath, the God of Love are one, Nor least He loves when most He smites. Alone Who rises above fear and plays with grief; Defeat, and death, inherits full relief From blindness and beholds the single Form, Love masking Terror, Peace supporting storm. The Friend of Man helps him with Life and Death, Until he knows. Then freed from mortal breath He feels the joy of the immortal play; Grief, pain, resentment, terror pass away. He too grows Rudra fierce, august and dire, And Shiva, sweet fulfiller of desire. Page-74 |