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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.
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.
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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.
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.
Reminiscence
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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