{"id":1472,"date":"2013-07-13T01:35:02","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1472"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:35:02","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:35:02","slug":"91-ocean-oneness-vol-05-collected-poems-volume-05","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/05-collected-poems-volume-05\/91-ocean-oneness-vol-05-collected-poems-volume-05","title":{"rendered":"-91_Ocean Oneness.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

\n
\nVI<\/p>\n

POEMS IN NEW METRES<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n<\/font>
\nOcean Oneness*<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n

\n
\nS<\/b>ilence
\nis round me, wideness ineffable;
\nWhite birds on the ocean diving and wandering;
\n    A soundless sea on a voiceless heaven,
\n        Azure on azure, is mutely gazing.<\/p>\n

Identified with silence and boundlessness
\nMy spirit widens clasping the universe
\n    Till all that seemed becomes the Real,
\n        One in a mighty and single vastness.<\/p>\n

Someone broods there nameless and bodiless,
\nConscious and lonely; deathless and infinite,
\n    And, sole in a still eternal rapture,
\n        Gathers all things to his heart for ever.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n*
\nAlcaics. Modulations are allowed, trochee or iamb in the first foot or a long
\nmonosyllable; an occasional anapaest in place of an iamb is permitted; a
\nbacchius can replace a dactyl.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n
\nPage \u2013 557<\/p>\n

<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\n
\nTrance
\nof Waiting*<\/font><\/a><\/span><\/b>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nLone on my summits of calm I have brooded with voices around me,
\nMurmurs of silence that steep mind in a luminous sleep,
\nWhispers from things beyond thought in the Secrecy flame-white for ever,
\nUnscanned heights that reply seek from the inconscient deep.
\nDistant below me the ocean of life with its passionate surges
\nPales like a pool that is stirred by the wings of a shadowy bird.
\nThought has flown back from its wheelings and stoopings, the nevve-beat
\n                                                                                                           
\nof living
\nStills; my spirit at peace bathes in a mighty release.
\nWisdom supernal looks down on me, Knowledge mind cannot measure;
\nLight that no vision can render garments the silence with splendour.
\nFilled with a rapturous Presence the crowded spaces of being
\nTremble with the Fire that knows, thrill with the might of repose.
\nEarth is now girdled with trance and Heaven is put round her for vesture.
\nWings that are brilliant with fate sleep at Eternity’s gate.
\nTime waits, vacant, the lightning that kindles, the Word that transfigures:
\nSpace is a stillness of God building his earthly abode.
\nAll waits hushed for the fiat to come and the tread of the Eternal;
\nPassion of a bliss yet to be sweeps from Infinity’s sea.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n*Elegiacs, with rhyme in the pentameter. A syllable or two introducing the last
\nhemistich of the pentameter is allowed, but this must not be made the rule. This
\nlicense, impossible in the strict cut of classical metre, comes in naturally in
\nEnglish and is therefore permissible.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage
\n\u2013 558<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\n
\nFlame-Wind*<\/font><\/a><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n       
\nA
\nflame-wind ran from the gold of the east,
\nLeaped on my soul with the breath of a sevenfold noon.
\n        Wings of the angel, gallop of the beast!
\nMind and body on fire, but the heart in swoon.<\/p>\n

        O flame, thou bringest the strength of the noon,
\nBut where are the voices of morn and the stillness of eve?
\n        Where the pale-blue wine of the moon?
\nMind and life are in flower, but the heart must grieve.<\/p>\n

        Gold in the mind and the life-flame’s red
\nMake of the heavens a splendour, the earth a blaze,
\n        But the white and rose of the heart are dead.
\nFlame-wind, pass! I will wait for Love in the silent ways.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*
\nDactylic tetrameter and pentameter catalectic; an additional foot in the last
\nline; trochee or spondee freely admitted anywhere; first paeon, bacchius, cretic
\ncan replace a dactyl. One or two extra syllables are allowed sometimes at the
\nbeginning of the line.<\/span> 
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n


\n
\nPage \u2013 559<\/p>\n

<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nThe River*<\/a><\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWild
\nriver in thy cataract far-murmured and rash rapids to sea hasting
\nFar now is that birth-place mid abrupt mountains and slow dreaming of lone valleys
\nWhere only with blue heavens was rapt converse or green orchards with fruit leaning
\nStood imaged in thy waves and, content, listened to thy rhapsody’s long murmur.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nVast now in a wide press and a dense hurry and mass movement of thronged waters
\nLoud-thundering, fast-galloping, might, speed is the stern message of thy spirit
\nProud violence, stark claim and the dire cry of the heart’s hunger on God’s’ barriers
\nSelf-hurled, and a void lust of unknown distance, and pace reckless and free grandeur.<\/p>\n

Calm yet shall release thee; an immense peace and a large streaming of white silence,
\nBroad plains shall be thine, greenness surround thee, and wharved cities and life’s labour
\nLong thou wilt befriend, human delight help with the waves’ coolness, with ship’s furrows
\nThrill, – last become, self losing, a sea-motion and joy boundless and blue laughter.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*
\nIonic a majore pentameter catalectic. In one place an epitrite replaces the
\nionic.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span>
\nPage-560<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\n
\nThe
\nDream Boat*<\/font><\/a><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\tWho was it that came to me in a boat made of dream-fire,
\n     With his flame brow and his sun-gold body?
\n Melted was the silence into a sweet secret murmur,
\n     "Do you come now? is the heart’s fire ready?"<\/p>\n

Hidden in the recesses of the heart something shuddered,
\n     It recalled all that the life’s joy cherished,
\n Imaged the felicity it must leave lost for ever,
\n     And the boat passed and the gold god vanished.<\/p>\n

Now within the hollowness of the world’s breast inhabits –
\n     For the love died and the old joy ended –
\n Void of a felicity that has fled, gone for ever,
\n     And the gold. god and the dream boat come not.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n *<\/span><\/b>Lines
\n 1, 3 dactyl, second paeon, ionic a minore, amphibrach (or antibacchius)
\n  <\/span><\/p>\n

\n \u00af ˘ ˘ | ˘ \u00af ˘ ˘ | ˘ ˘ \u00af \u00af | ˘ \u00af
\n ˘
\n ˘ \u00af \u00af
\n  <\/span><\/p>\n

Lines 2, 4 two ionics a minore
\n with a closing trochee <\/span>
\n
\n ˘ ˘ \u00af \u00af | ˘ ˘ \u00af \u00af | \u00af ˘ )<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n


\nPage-561<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\n
\nThe Witness and the Wheel *<\/a><\/b><\/font><\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nWho
\nart thou in the heart comrade of man who sitst
\nAugust, watching his works, watching his joys and griefs,
\nUnmoved, careless of pain, careless of death and fate?
\nWitness, what hast thou seen watching this great blind world
\nMoving helpless in Time, whirled on the Wheel in Space,
\nThat yet thou with thy vast Will biddest toil our hearts,
\nMystic, – for without thee nothing can last in Time?
\nWe too, when from the urge ceaseless of Nature turn
\nOur souls, far from the breast casting her tool, desire,
\nGrow like thee. In the front Nature still drives in vain
\nThe blind trail of our acts, passions and thoughts and hopes;
\nUnmoved, calm, we look on, careless of death and fate,
\nOf grief careless and joy, – signs of a surface script
\nWithout value or sense, steps of an aimless world.
\nSomething watches behind, Spirit or Self or Soul,
\nViewing Space and its toil, waiting the end of Time.
\nWitness, who then art thou, one with thee who am I,
\nNameless, watching the Wheel whirl across Time and Space?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*
\nThe metre is the little Asclepiad used by Horace in his Ode addressed to Maecenas, two choriambs between an initial spondee and a finai iamb. Here
\nmodulations are admited, trochee or iamb for the spondee, occasionally a spondee
\nfor the concluding iamb; an epitrite or ionic a minore can replace the choriamb.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage-562<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\nDescent*<\/font><\/a><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

All my cells thrill swept by a surge of splendour,
\nSoul and body stir with a mighty rapture,
\nLight and still more light like an ocean billows
\n  
\n             Over
\nme, round me.<\/p>\n

Rigid, stone-like, fixed like a hill or statue,
\nVast my body feels and upbears the world’s weight;
\nDire the large descent of the Godhead enters
\n  
\n             Limbs
\nthat are mortal.<\/p>\n

Voiceless, thronged, Infinity crowds upon me;
\nPresses down a glory of power eternal;
\nMind and heart grow one with the cosmic wideness;
\n  
\n             Stilled
\nare earth’s murmurs.<\/p>\n

Swiftly, swiftly crossing the golden spaces
\nKnowledge leaps, a torrent of rapid lightnings;
\nThoughts that left the Ineffable’s, flaming mansions,
\n  
\n             Blaze
\nin my spirit.<\/p>\n

Slow the heart-beats’ rhythm like a giant hammer’s;
\nMissioned voices drive to me from God’s doorway
\nWords that live not save upon Nature’s summits,
\n  
\n            
\nEcstasy’s chariots.<\/p>\n

All the world is changed to a single oneness;
\nSouls undying, infinite forces, meeting,
\nJoin in God-dance weaving a seamless Nature,
\n  
\n             Rhythm
\nof the Deathless.<\/p>\n

Mind and heart and body, one harp of being,
\nCry that anthem, finding the notes eternal, –
\nLight and might and bliss and immortal wisdom
\n  
\n            
\nClasping for ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*
\nSapphics. But the second-foot spondee is very usually replaced by a trochee, the
\nfinal trochee sometimes by a spondee; a bacchius, cretic or molossus can replace
\nthe dactyl. In the fifteenth line elision is used; in a Sapphic line there can
\nbe only one dactyl.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage-563<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nThe
\nLost Boat*<\/a><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

At the way’s end when the shore raised up its dim line and remote lights from the port glimmered,
\nThen a cloud darkened the sky’s brink and the wind’s scream was the shrill laugh of a loosed demon
\nAnd the huge passion of storm leaped with its bright stabs and the long crashing of death’s thunder;
\nAs if haled by an unseen hand fled the boat lost in the wide homeless forlorn ocean.<\/p>\n

Is it Chance smites? is it Fate’s irony? dead workings or blind purpose of brute Nature?
\nOr man’s own deeds that return back on his doomed head with a stark justice, a fixed vengeance
\nOr a dread Will from behind Life that regards pain and salutes death with a hard laughter?
\nIs it God’s might or a Force rules in this dense jungle of events, deeds and our thought’s strivings?<\/p>\n

Yet perhaps sank not the bright lives and their glad venturings foiled, drowned in the grey ocean,
\nBut with long wandering they reached an unknown shore and a strage sun and a new azure,
\nAmid bright splendour of beast glories and birds’ music and deep hues, an enriched Nature
\nAnd a new life that could draw near to divine meanings and touched close the concealed purpose.<\/p>\n

In a chance happening, fate’s whims and the blind workings or dead drive of a brute Nature,
\nIn her dire Titan caprice, strength that to death drifts and to doom, hidden a Will labours.
\nNot with one moment of sharp close or the slow fall of a dim curtain the play ceases:
\nYet is there Time to be crossed, lives to be lived out, the unplayed acts of soul’s drama.<\/p>\n

<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/sup>Ionic
\na minore pentameter with an overflow of one short syllable
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n˘ ˘ \u00af \u00af | ˘ ˘ \u00af \u00af | ˘ ˘ \u00af \u00af | ˘ ˘ \u00af \u00af | ˘ ˘ \u00af \u00af | ˘ <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-564<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nRenewal*<\/font><\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nWhen the heart tires and the throb stills recalling
\n    Things that were once and again can be never,
\nWhen the bow falls and the drawn string is broken,
\n    Hands that were clasped, yet for ever are parted,<\/p>\n

When the soul passes to new births and bodies,
\n    Lands never seen and meetings with new faces,
\nIs the bow raised and the fall’n arrow fitted,
\n    Acts that were vain rewedded to the Fate-curve?<\/p>\n

To the lives sundered can Time bring rejoining,
\n    Love that was slain be reborn with the body?
\nIn the mind null, from the heart’s chords rejected,
\n    Lost to the sense, but the spirit remembers!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n(Lines
\n1, 3 two ionies a minore with adinal amphibrach,
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n    <\/span>
\n˘ ˘ \u00af \u00af | ˘ ˘ \u00af \u00af | ˘ \u00af ˘
\n<\/span>
\nLines 2, 4 choriamb, paeon, bacchius (or sometimes antibacchius or amphibrach),
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00af ˘ ˘ \u00af | ˘ ˘ \u00af ˘ | \u00af \u00af ˘
\n˘ ˘ \u00af ˘ | ˘ \u00af \u00af <\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage-565<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nSoul’s
\nScene*<\/font><\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nThe clouds lain on forlorn spaces of sky, weary and lolling,
\nWatch grey waves of a lost sea wander sad, reckless and rolling,
\n        A bare anguish of black beaches made
\nmournful with the breath of the Northwind,
\nAnd a huddle of melancholy hills in the distance.<\/p>\n

The blank hour in some vast mood of a Soul lonely in Nature
\nOn earth’s face puts a mask pregnantly carved, cut to misfeature,
\n    And man’s heart and his stilled mind react hushed in a
\nspiritual passion
\n        Imitating the contours of her desolate
\nwaiting.<\/p>\n

Impassible she waits long for the sun’s gold and the azure,
\nThe sea’s song with its slow happy refrain’s plashes of pleasure, –
\n    As man’s soul in its depths waits the outbreaking of the
\nlight and the godhead
\nAnd the bliss that God felt when he created his image.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n*Lines
\n1, 2 three antispasts (or in the first foot a second pacon), amphibrach,
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n˘ \u00af \u00af ˘ | ˘ \u00af \u00af ˘ | ˘ \u00af \u00af ˘ | ˘ \u00af
\n˘
\n˘ \u00af ˘ ˘
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nLine 3 two antispasts, ionic a majore, second pacon, trochee
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n˘ \u00af \u00af ˘ | ˘ \u00af \u00af ˘ | ˘ \u00af \u00af ˘ | ˘ \u00af \u00af
\n˘ | \u00af ˘ .
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nLine 4 three paeons, trochee, but the middle paeon can be replaced by an
\nantispast or an ionic a majore; a double iamb once replaces the third paeon.)<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage-566<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\nASCENT*<\/font><\/a><\/span><\/b>
\n <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nSilence<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Into the Silence, into the Silence,
\nArise, O Spirit immortal,
\nAway from the turning Wheel, breaking the magical Circle.
\nAscend, single and deathless:
\nCare no more for the whispers and the shoutings in the darkness.
\nPass from the sphere of the grey and the little,
\nLeaving the cry and the struggle,
\nInto the Silence for ever.<\/p>\n

Vast and immobile, formless and marvellous,
\nHigher than Heaven, wider than the universe,
\nIn a pure glory of being,
\nIn a bright stillness of self-seeing,
\nCommuning with a boundlessness voiceless and intimate,
\nMake thy knowledge to high for thought, thy joy too deep for emotion;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAt
\nrest in the unchanging Light, mute with the wordless self vision,
\nSpirit, pass out of thyself; Soul, escape from the clutch of Nature.
\nAll thou hast seen cast from thee, O Witness.
\nTurn to the Alone and the Absolute, turn to the Eternal:
\nBe only eternity, peace and silence,
\nO world-transcending nameless Oneness,
\nSpirit immortal.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n*<\/span>Free
\nquantitative verse with a predominant dactylic movement.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-567<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n2<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nBeyond
\nthe Silence<\/font><\/a><\/span><\/b>
\n<\/font>
\n
\nOut from the Silence, out from the Silence,
\nCarrying with thee the ineffable Substance,
\nCarrying with thee the splendour and wideness,
\nAscend, O Spirit immortal.
\nAssigning to Time its endless meaning,
\nBlissful enter into the clasp of the Timeless.
\nAwake in the living Eternal, taken to the bosom of love of the Infinite,
\nLive self-found in his endless completeness,
\nDrowned in his joy and his sweetness,
\nThy heart close to the heart of the Godhead for ever.<\/p>\n

Vast, God-possessing, embraced by the Wonderful,
\nLifted by the All-Beautiful into his infinite beauty,
\nLove shall envelop thee endless and fathomless,
\nJoy unimaginable, ecstasy illimitable,
\nKnowledge omnipotent, Might omniscient,
\nLight without darkness, Truth that is dateless.
\nOne with the Transcendent, calm, universal,
\nSingle and free, yet innumerably living,
\nAll in thyself and thyself in all dwelling,
\nAct in the world with thy being beyond it.
\nSoul, exceed life’s boundaries; Spirit, surpass the universe.
\nOutclimbing the summits of Nature,
\nTranscending and uplifting the soul of the finite,
\nRise with the world in thy bosom,
\n0 Word gathered into the heart of the Ineffable.
\nOne with the Eternal, live in his infinity,
\nDrowned in the Absolute, found in the Godhead,
\nSwan of the supreme and spaceless ether wandering winged through the universe,
\nSpirit immortal.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage-568<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\nThe
\nTiger and the Deer*<\/font><\/a><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nBrilliant,
\ncrouching, slouching, what crept through the green heart of the forest,
\nGleaming eyes and mighty chest and soft soundless paws of grandeur and murder?
\nThe wind slipped through the leaves as if afraid lest its voice and the noise of its steps perturb the pitiless Splendour,
\nHardly daring to breathe. But the great beast crouched and crept, and crept and crouched a last time, noiseless, fatal,
\nTill suddenly death leaped on the beautiful wild deer as it drank
\nUnsuspecting from the great pool in the forest’s coolness and shadow,
\nAnd it fell and, torn, died remembering its mate left sole in the deep woodland, –
\nDestroyed, the mild harmless beauty by the strong cruel beauty in Nature.
\nBut a day may yet come when the tiger crouches and leaps no more in the dangerous heart of the forest,
\nAs the mammoth shakes no more the plains of Asia;
\nStill then shall the beautiful wild deer drink from the coolness of great pools in the leaves’ shadow.
\nThe mighty perish in their might;
\nThe slain survive the slayer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n*<\/span>Free
\nquantitative verse, left to find out its own line by line rhythm and unity.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage-569<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\nSoul
\nin the Ignorance*<\/font><\/a> <\/font> <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nSoul in the Ignorance, wake from its stupor.
\nFlake of the world-fire, spark of Divinity;
\nLift up thy mind and thy heart into glory.
\nSun in the darkness, recover thy lustre.<\/p>\n

One, universal, ensphering creation,
\nWheeling no more with inconscient Nature,
\nFeel thyself God-born, know thyself deathless.
\nTimeless return to thy immortal existence.<\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nJourney’s End**<\/font><\/a>
\n<\/font>
\n<\/b>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe day ends lost in a stretch of even,
\nA long road trod – and the little farther.
\nNow the waste-land, now the silence;
\nA blank dark wall, and behind it heaven.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n*Dactylic tetrameter, usually catalectic, with the ordinary modulations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n**<\/span>(Lines
\n1, 2, 4 epitrite, third paeon, trochee <\/span>
\n
\n˘ \u00af \u00af \u00af | ˘ ˘ \u00af ˘ | \u00af ˘ <\/span>
\n. In line 3 two double trochees <\/span>
\n
\n\u00af ˘ \u00af ˘ | \u00af ˘ \u00af ˘ |<\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage-570<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\nThe
\nBird of Fire<\/a><\/font><\/b>
\n<\/font>
\n
\nGold-white wings a-throb in the vastness, the bird of flame went
\nglimmering over a sunfire curve to the haze of the west,
\nSkimming, a messenger sail, the sapphire-summer waste of a
\nsoundless wayless burning sea.
\nNow in the eve of the waning world the colour and splendour re-
\nturning drift through a blue-flicker air back to my breast,
\nFlame and shimmer staining the rapture-white foam-vest of
\nthe waters of Eternity.<\/p>\n

Gold-white wings of the miraculous bird of fire, late and slow
\nhave you come from the Timeless. Angel, here unto me
\nBringst thou for travailing earth a spirit silent and free or
\nHis crimson passion of love divine, –
\nWhite-ray-jar of the spuming rose-red wine drawn from the vats
\nbrimming with light-blaze, the vats of ecstasy,
\nPressed by the sudden and violent feet of the Dancer in Time
\nfrom his sun-grape fruit of a deathless vine?<\/p>\n

White-rose-altar the eternal Silence built, make now my nature
\nwide, an intimate guest of His solitude,
\nBut golden above it the body of One in her diamond sphere
\nwith Her halo of star-blooql and passion-ray!
\nRich and red is thy breast, 0 bird, like blood of a soul climbing
\nthe hard crag-teeth world, wounded and nude,
\nA ruby of flame-petalled love in the silver-gold altar-vase
\nof moon-edged night and rising day.<\/p>\n

0 Flame who art Time’s last boon of the sacrifice, offering-flower
\nheld by the finite’s gods to the Infinite,
\n0 marvel bird with the burning wings of light and the unbarred
\nlids that look beyond all space,
\nOne strange leap of thy mystic stress breaking the barriers of mind
\nand life, arrives at its luminous term thy flight;
\nInvading the secret clasp of the Silence and crimson Fire
\nthou frontest eyes in a timeless Face.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage-571<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nTrance<\/a><\/font><\/b>
\n<\/font>
\n
\nA naked and silver-pointed star
\nFloating near the halo of the moon;
\nA storm-rack, the pale sky’s fringe and bar,
\nOver waters stilling into swoon.<\/p>\n

My mind is awake in stirless trance,
\nHushed my heart, a burden of delight;
\nDispelled is the senses’ flicker-dance,
\nMute the body aureate with light.<\/p>\n

0 star of creation pure and free,
\nHalo-moon of ecstasy unknown,
\nStorm-breath of the soul-change yet to be,
\nOcean-self enraptured and alone!<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage-572<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\nShiva<\/a><\/b><\/font>
\n<\/font>
\n
\nTHE INCONSCIENT
\nCREATOR<\/p>\n

A face on the cold dire mountain peaks
\n    Grand and still; its lines white and austere
\nMatch with the unmeasured snowy streaks
\n    Cutting heaven, implacable and sheer.<\/p>\n

Above it a mountain of matted hair
\n    Aeon-coiled on that deathless and lone head
\nIn its solitude huge of lifeless air
\n    Round, above illimitably spread.<\/p>\n

A moon-ray on the forehead, blue and pale,
\n    Stretched afar its finger of still light
\nIllumining emptiness. Stern and male
\n    Mask of peace indifferent in might!<\/p>\n

But out from some Infinite born now came
\n    Over giant snows and the still face
\nA quiver and colour of crimson flame,
\n    Fire-point in immensities of space.<\/p>\n

Light-spear-tips revealed the mighty shape,
\n    Tore the secret veil of the heart’s hold;
\nIn that diamond heart the fires undrape,
\n    Living core, a brazier of gold.<\/p>\n

This was the closed mute and burning source
\n    Whence were formed the worlds and their star-dance;
\nLife sprang a self-rapt inconscient Force,
\n    Love, a blazing seed, from the flame-trance;.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-573<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\nThe
\nLife Heavens<\/a><\/font><\/b>
\n<\/font>
\n
\nA life of intensities wide, immune
\n    Floats behind the earth and her life-fret,
\nA magic of realms mastered by spell and rune,
\n    Grandiose, blissful, coloured, increate.<\/p>\n

A music there wanders mortal ear
\n    Hears not, seizing, intimate, remote,
\nWide-winged in soul-spaces, fire-clear,
\n    Heaping note on enrapturing new note.<\/p>\n

Forms deathless there triumph, hues divine
\n    Thrill with nets of glory the moved air;
\nEach sense is an ecstasy, love the sign
\n    Of one outblaze of godhead that two share.<\/p>\n

The peace of the senses, the senses’ stir
\n    On one harp are joined mysteries; pain
\nTransmuted is ravishment’s minister,
\n    A high note and a fiery refrain.<\/p>\n

All things are a harmony faultless, pure;
\n    Grief is not nor stain-wound of desire;
\nThe heart-beats are a cadence bright and sure
\n    Of Joy’s quick steps, too invincible to tire.<\/p>\n

A Will there, a Force, a magician Mind
\n    Moves, and builds at once its delight-norms,
\nThe marvels it seeks for surprised, outlined,
\n    Hued, alive, a cosmos of fair forms.<\/p>\n

Sounds, colours, joy-flamings. Life lies here
\n    Dreaming, bound to the heavens of its goal,
\nIn the clasp of a Power that enthrals to sheer
\n    Bliss and beauty body and rapt soul.<\/p>\n

My spirit sank drowned in the wonder surge:
\n    Screened, withdrawn was the greatness it had sought;
\nLost was the storm-stress and the warrior urge,
\n    Lost the titan winging of the thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-574<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nIt
\nlay at ease in a sweetness of heaven-sense
\n    Delivered from grief, with no need left to aspire,
\nFree, self-dispersed in voluptuous innocence,
\n    Lulled and borne into roseate cloud-fire.<\/p>\n

But suddenly there soared a dateless cry,
\n    Deep as Night, imperishable as Time;
\nIt seemed Death’s dire appeal to Eternity,
\n    Earth’s outcry to the limitless Sublime.<\/p>\n

"O high seeker of immortality,
\n    Is there not, ineffable, a bliss
\nToo vast for. these finite harmonies,
\n    Too divine for the moment’s unsure kiss?<\/p>\n

"Arms taking to a voiceless supreme delight,
\n    Life that meets the Eternal with close breast,
\nAn unwalled mind dissolved in the Infinite,
\n    Force one with unimaginable rest?<\/p>\n

"I, Earth, have a deeper power than Heaven;
\n    My lonely sorrow surpasses its rose-joys,
\nA red and bitter seed of the raptures seven; –
\n    My dumbness fills with echoes of a far Voice.<\/p>\n

"By me the last finite, yearning, strives
\n    To reach the last infinity’s unknown,
\nThe Eternal is broken into fleeting lives
\n    And Godhead pent in the mite and the stone."<\/p>\n

Dissolving the kingdoms of happy ease
\n    Rocked and split and faded their dream-chime.
\nAll vanished; ungrasped eternities
\n    Sole survived and Timelessness seized Time.<\/p>\n

Earth’s heart was felt beating below me stilI,
\n    Veiled, immense, unthinkable above
\nMy consciousness climbed like a topless hilI,
\n    Crossed seas of Light to epiphanies of Love.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-575<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nJivanmukta<\/a><\/font><\/b>
\n<\/font><\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>
\n
\nThere is a silence greater than any known
\nTo earth’s dumb spirit, motionless in the soul
\n    That has become Eternity’s foothold,
\n        Touched by the infinitudes for ever.<\/p>\n

A Splendour is here, refused to the earthward sight,
\nThat floods some deep flame-covered all-seeing eye;
\n    Revealed it wakens when God’s stillness
\n        Heavens the ocean of moveless Nature.<\/p>\n

A Power descends no Fate can perturb or vanquish,
\nCalmer than mountains, wider than marching waters,
\n    A single might of luminous quiet
\n        Tirelessly bearing the worlds and ages.<\/p>\n

A bliss surrounds with ecstasy everlasting,
\nAn absolute high-seated immortal rapture
\n    Possesses, sealing love to bneness
\n        In the grasp of the All-beautiful,
\nAll-beloved.<\/p>\n

He who from Time’s dull motion escapes and thrills
\nRapt thoughtless, wordless into the Eternal’s breast,
\n    Unrolls the form and sign of being,
\n        Seated above in the omniscient Silence.<\/p>\n

Although consenting here to a mortal body,
\nHe is the Undying; limit and bond he knows not;
\n    For him the aeons are a playground,
\n        Life and its deeds are his splendid
\nshadow.<\/p>\n

Only to bring God’s forces to waiting Nature,
\nTo help with wide-winged Peace her tormented labour
\n    And heal with joy her ancient sorrow,
\n        Casting down light on the inconscient
\ndarkness,<\/p>\n

He acts and lives. Vain things are mind’s smaller motives
\nTo one whose soul enjoys for its high possession
\n    Infinity and the sempiternal
\n        All is his guide and beloved and refuge.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-576<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\nIn
\nHoris Aeternum<\/a><\/font><\/b>
\n<\/font>
\n
\nA far sail on the unchangeable monotone of a slow slumbering sea,
\nA world of power hushed into symbols of hue, silent unendingly;
\nOver its head like a gold ball the sun tossed by the gods in their play
\nFollows its curve, – a blazing eye of Time watching the motionless day.<\/p>\n

Here or otherwhere, – poised on the unreachable abrupt snow-solitary
\n  
\n                                                                                                        
\nascent
\nEarth aspiring lifts to the illimitable Light, then ceases broken and spent,
\nOr in the glowing expanse, arid, fiery and austere, of the desert’s hungry
\n  
\n                                                                                                            
\nsoul, –
\nA breath, a cry, a glimmer from Eternity’s face, in a fragment the mystic
\n  
\n                                                                                                            
\nWhole.<\/p>\n

Moment-mere, yet with all eternity packed, lone, fixed, intense,
\nOut of the ring of these hours that dance and die, caught by the spirit in
\n  
\n                                                                                                            
\nsense,
\nIn the greatness of a man, in music’s outspread wings, in a touch, in a smile,
\n  
\n                                                                                                            
\nin a sound,
\nSomething that waits, something that wanders and settles not, a Nothing
\n  
\n                                                                            
\nthat was all and is found.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-577<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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