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Part Three Baroda and Bengal Circa 1900 1909
Poems from Ahana and Other Poems
With wind and the weather beating round me Up to the hill and the moorland I go. Who will come with me? Who will climb with me? Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow?
Not in the petty circle of cities Cramped by your doors and your walls I dwell; Over me God is blue in the welkin, Against me the wind and the storm rebel.
I sport with solitude here in my regions, Of misadventure have made me a friend. Who would live largely? Who would live freely? Here to the wind-swept uplands ascend.
I am the lord of tempest and mountain, I am the Spirit of freedom and pride. Stark must he be and a kinsman to danger Who shares my kingdom and walks at my side.
In the blue of the sky, in the green of the forest, Whose is the hand that has painted the glow? When the winds were asleep in the womb of the ether, Who was it roused them and bade them to blow?
He is lost in the heart, in the cavern of Nature, He is found in the brain where He builds up the thought: In the pattern and bloom of the flowers He is woven, In the luminous net of the stars He is caught.
Page – 201 In the strength of a man, in the beauty of woman, In the laugh of a boy, in the blush of a girl; The hand that sent Jupiter spinning through heaven, Spends all its cunning to fashion a curl.
These are His works and His veils and His shadows; But where is He then? by what name is He known? Is He Brahma or Vishnu? a man or a woman? Bodied or bodiless? twin or alone?
We have love for a boy who is dark and resplendent, A woman is lord of us, naked and fierce. We have seen Him a-muse on the snow of the mountains, We have watched Him at work in the heart of the spheres.
We will tell the whole world of His ways and His cunning: He has rapture of torture and passion and pain; He delights in our sorrow and drives us to weeping, Then lures with His joy and His beauty again.
All music is only the sound of His laughter, All beauty the smile of His passionate bliss; Our lives are His heart-beats, our rapture the bridal Of Radha and Krishna, our love is their kiss.
He is strength that is loud in the blare of the trumpets, And He rides in the car and He strikes in the spears; He slays without stint and is full of compassion; He wars for the world and its ultimate years.
In the sweep of the worlds, in the surge of the ages, Ineffable, mighty, majestic and pure, Beyond the last pinnacle seized by the thinker He is throned in His seats that for ever endure.
Page – 202 The Master of man and his infinite Lover, He is close to our hearts, had we vision to see; We are blind with our pride and the pomp of our passions, We are bound in our thoughts where we hold ourselves free.
It is He in the sun who is ageless and deathless, And into the midnight His shadow is thrown; When darkness was blind and engulfed within darkness, He was seated within it immense and alone.
Snow in June may break from Nature, Ice through August last, The random rose may increase stature In December's blast;
But this at least can never be, O thou mortal ecstasy, That one should live, even in pain, Visited by thy disdain.
My soul arose at dawn and, listening, heard One voice abroad, a solitary bird, A song not master of its note, a cry That persevered into eternity. My soul leaned out into the dawn to hear In the world's solitude its winged compeer And, hearkening what the Angel had to say, Saw lustre in midnight and a secret day Was opened to it. It beheld the stars Born from a thought and knew how being prepares. Then I remembered how I woke from sleep And made the skies, built earth, formed Ocean deep.
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I dreamed that in myself the world I saw, Wherein three Angels strove for mastery. Law Was one, clear vision and denial cold, Yet in her limits strong, presumptuous, bold; The second with enthusiasm bright, Flame in her heart but round her brows the night, Faded as this advanced. She could not bear That searching gaze, nor the strong chilling air These thoughts created, nourishing our parts Of mind, but petrifying human hearts. Science was one, the other gave her name, Religion. But a third behind them came, Veiled, vague, remote, and had as yet no right Upon the world, but lived in her own light. Wide were the victories of the Angel proud Who conquered now and in her praise were loud The nations. Few even yet to the other clove, — And some were souls of night and some were souls of love. But this was confident and throned. Her heralds ranged Claiming that night was dead and all things changed; For all things opened, all seemed clear, seemed bright — Save the vast ranges that they left in night. However, the light they shed upon the earth Was great indeed, a firm and mighty birth. A century's progress lived before my eyes. Delivered from amazement and surprise, Man's spirit measuring his worlds around The laws of sight divined and laws of sound. Light was not hidden from her searching gaze, Nor matter could deny its myriad maze To the cold enquiry; for the far came near, The small loomed large, the intricate grew clear. Measuring and probing the strong Angel strode, Dissolving and combining, till she trod
Page – 204 Firmly among the stars, could weigh their forms, Foretold the earthquakes, analysed the storms. Doubt seemed to end and wonder's reign was closed. The stony pages of the earth disclosed Their unremembered secrets. Horses of steam Were bitted and the lightnings made a team To draw our chariots. Heaven was scaled at last And the loud seas subdued. Distance resigned Its strong obstructions to the mastering mind. So moved that spirit trampling; then it laid Its hand at last upon itself, how this was made Wondering, and sought to class and sought to trace Mind by its forms, the wearer by the dress. Then the other arose and met that spirit robust, Who laboured; she now grew a shade who must Fade wholly away, yet to her fellow cried, "I pass, for thou hast laboured well and wide. Thou thinkest term and end for thee are not; But though thy pride is great, thou hast forgot The Sphinx that waits for man beside the way. All questions thou mayst answer, but one day Her question shall await thee. That reply, As all we must; for they who cannot, die. She slays them and their mangled bodies lie Upon the highways of eternity. Therefore, if thou wouldst live, know first this thing, Who thou art in this dungeon labouring." And Science confidently, "Nothing am I but earth, Tissue and nerve and from the seed a birth, A mould, a plasm, a gas, a little that is much. In these grey cells that quiver to each touch The secret lies of man; they are the thing called I. Matter insists and matter makes reply. Shakespeare was this; this force in Jesus yearned And conquered by the cross; this only learned The secret of the suns that blaze afar; This was Napoleon's giant mind of war."
Page – 205 I heard and marvelled in myself to see The infinite deny infinity. Yet the weird paradox seemed justified; Even mysticism shrank out-mystified. But the third Angel came and touched my eyes; I saw the mornings of the future rise, I heard the voices of an age unborn That comes behind us and our pallid morn, And from the heart of an approaching light One said to man, "Know thyself infinite, Who shalt do mightier miracles than these, Infinite, moving mid infinities." Then from our hills the ancient answer pealed, "For Thou, O Splendour, art myself concealed, And the grey cell contains me not, the star I outmeasure and am older than the elements are. Whether on earth or far beyond the sun, I, stumbling, clouded, am the Eternal One."
If I had wooed thee for thy colour rare, Cherished the rose in thee Or wealth of Nature's brilliants in thy hair, O woman fair, My love might cease to be.
Or, had I sought thee for thy virtuous youth And tender yearning speech, Thy swift compassion and deliberate truth, O heart of ruth, Time might pursue, might reach.
Page – 206 But I have loved thee for thyself indeed And with myself have snared; Immortal to immortal I made speed. Change I exceed And am for Time prepared.
A tree beside the sandy river-beach Holds up its topmost boughs Like fingers towards the skies they cannot reach, Earth-bound, heaven-amorous.
This is the soul of man. Body and brain Hungry for earth our heavenly flight detain.
O grey wild sea, Thou hast a message, thunderer, for me. Their huge wide backs Thy monstrous billows raise, abysmal cracks Dug deep between. One pale boat flutters over them, hardly seen. I hear thy roar Call me, "Why dost thou linger on the shore With fearful eyes Watching my tops visit their foam-washed skies? This trivial boat Dares my vast battering billows and can float. Death if it find, Are there not many thousands left behind? Dare my wide roar, Nor cling like cowards to the easy shore.
Page – 207 Come down and know What rapture lives in danger and o'erthrow." Yes, thou great sea, I am more mighty and outbillow thee. On thy tops I rise; 'Tis an excuse to dally with the skies. I sink below The bottom of the clamorous world to know. On the safe land To linger is to lose what God has planned For man's wide soul, Who set eternal godhead for its goal. Therefore He arrayed Danger and difficulty like seas and made Pain and defeat, And put His giant snares around our feet. The cloud He informs With thunder and assails us with His storms, That man may grow King over pain and victor of o'erthrow Matching his great Unconquerable soul with adverse Fate. Take me, be My way to climb the heavens, thou rude great sea. I will seize thy mane, O lion, I will tame thee and disdain; Or else below Into thy salt abysmal caverns go, Receive thy weight Upon me and be stubborn as my Fate. I come, O Sea, To measure my enormous self with thee.
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Someone leaping from the rocks Past me ran with wind-blown locks Like a startled bright surmise Visible to mortal eyes, — Just a cheek of frightened rose That with sudden beauty glows, Just a footstep like the wind And a hurried glance behind, And then nothing, — as a thought Escapes the mind ere it is caught. Someone of the heavenly rout From behind the veil ran out.
(Radha's Complaint)
Love, but my words are vain as air! In my sweet joyous youth, a heart untried, Thou tookst me in Love's sudden snare, Thou wouldst not let me in my home abide.
And now I have nought else to try, But I will make my soul one strong desire And into Ocean leaping die: So shall my heart be cooled of all its fire.
Die and be born to life again As Nanda's son, the joy of Braja's girls, And I will make thee Radha then, A laughing child's face set with lovely curls.
Page – 209 Then I will love thee and then leave; Under the codome's boughs when thou goest by Bound to the water morn or eve, Lean on that tree fluting melodiously.
Thou shalt hear me and fall at sight Under my charm; my voice shall wholly move Thy simple girl's heart to delight; Then shalt thou know the bitterness of love. (From an old Bengali poem)
Thy youth is but a noon, of night take heed, — A noon that is a fragment of a day, And the swift eve all sweet things bears away, All sweet things and all bitter, rose and weed. For others' bliss who lives, he lives indeed.
But thou art pitiful and ruth shouldst know. I bid thee trifle not with fatal love, But save our pride and dear one, O my dove, And heaven and earth and the nether world below Shall only with thy praises peopled grow.
Life is a bliss that cannot long abide, But while thou livest, love. For love the sky Was founded, earth upheaved from the deep cry Of waters, and by love is sweetly tied The golden cordage of our youth and pride. (Suggested by an old Bengali poem)
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