{"id":3457,"date":"2013-07-13T01:48:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3457"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:48:42","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:48:42","slug":"11-book-two-canto-six-vol-03-savitri-1954","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/01-savitri\/03-savitri-1954\/11-book-two-canto-six-vol-03-savitri-1954","title":{"rendered":"-11_Book_Two_Canto_Six.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n\n

\n

<\/p>\n

CANTO SIX<\/font> <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\nTHE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\nGREATER LIFE<\/b><\/span><\/font>
\n<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A<\/font>S<\/font><\/b> one who between dim receding walls<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Towards the far gleam of a tunnel’s mouth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHoping for light, walks now with freer pace<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd feels approach a breath of wider air,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSo he escaped from that grey anarchy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInto an ineffectual world he came,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA purposeless region of arrested birth<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhere being from non-being fled and dared<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo live but had no strength long to abide.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAbove there gleamed a pondering brow of sky<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTormented, crossed by wings of doubtful haze<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAdventuring with a voice of roaming winds<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd crying for a direction in the void<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLike blind souls looking for the selves they lost<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd wandering through unfamiliar worlds,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWings of vague questioning met the query of Space.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAfter denial dawned a dubious hope,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA hope of self and form and leave to live<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the birth of that which never yet could be,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd joy of the mind’s hazard, the heart’s choice,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGrace of the unknown and hands of sudden surprise<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd a touch of sure delight in unsure things:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 196<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

To a strange uncertain tract his journey came<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Where consciousness played with unconscious self<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And birth was an attempt or episode.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A charm drew near that could not keep its spell,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

An eager Power that could not find its way,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A Chance that chose a strange arithmetic<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But could not bind with it the forms it made,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A multitude that could not guard its sum<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Which less than zero grew and more than one.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Arriving at a large and shadowy sense<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

That cared not to define its fleeting drift<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Life laboured in a strange and mythic air<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Denuded of her sweet magnificent suns.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In worlds imagined, never yet made true,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A lingering glimmer on creation’s verge,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

One strayed and dreamed and never stopped to achieve:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

To achieve would have destroyed that magic Space.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe marvels of a twilight wonderland,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFull of a beauty strangely, vainly made,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA surge of fanciful realities,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDim tokens of a Splendour sealed above,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAwoke the passion of the eyes’ desire,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCompelled belief on the enamoured thought<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd drew the heart but led it to no goal.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA magic flowed as if of moving scenes<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat kept awhile their fugitive delicacy<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOf sparing lines limned by an abstract art<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn a rare scanted light with faint dream-brush<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOn a silver background of incertitude.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAn infant glow of heavens near to mom,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA fire intense conceived but never lit,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCaressed the air with ardent hints of day.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 197<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

The perfect longing for imperfection’s charm,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe illumined caught by the snare of Ignorance,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEthereal creatures drawn by body’s lure<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo that region of promise, beating invisible wings,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCame hungry for the joy of finite life<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut too divine to tread created soil<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd share the fate of perishable things.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Children of the unembodied Gleam<\/span><\/p>\n

\nArisen from a formless thought in the soul<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd chased by an imperishable desire,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTraversed the field of the pursuing gaze.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA will that unpersisting failed, worked there:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Life was a search but finding never came.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere nothing satisfied, but all allured,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThings seemed to be that never wholly are,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nImages were seen that looked like living acts<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd symbols hid the sense they claimed to show,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPale dreams grew real to the dreamer’s eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe souls came there that vainly strive for birth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd spirits entrapped might wander through all time,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYet never find the truth by which they live.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll ran like hopes that hunt a lurking chance;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Nothing was solid, nothing felt complete:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

All was unsafe, miraculous and half-true.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt seemed a realm of lives that had no base.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Then dawned a greater seeking, broadened Sky,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA journey under wings of brooding Force.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFirst came the kingdom of the morning star:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A twilight beauty trembled under its spear<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the throb of promise of a wider Life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThen slowly rose a great and doubting sun<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 198<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

And in its light she made of self a world.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A spirit was there that sought for its own deep self,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Yet was content with fragments pushed in front<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And parts of living that belied the Whole<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But, pieced together, might one day be true.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Yet something seemed to be achieved at last.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A growing volume of the will to be,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A text of living and a graph of force,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A script of acts, a song of conscious forms<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Burdened with meanings fugitive from thought’s grasp<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And crowded with undertones of life’s rhythmic cry,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Could write itself on the hearts of living things.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In an outbreak of the might of secret Spirit,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In Life and Matter’s answer of delight,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Some face of deathless beauty could be caught<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

That gave immortality to a moment’s joy,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Some word that could incarnate highest Truth<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Leaped out from a chance tension of the soul,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Some hue of the Absolute could fall on life,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Some glory of knowledge and intuitive sight,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Some passion of the rapturous heart of Love.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA hierophant of the bodiless Secrecy<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInterned in an unseen spiritual sheath,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Will that pushes sense beyond its scope<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

To feel the light and joy intangible,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Half found its way into the Ineffable’s peace,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Half captured a sealed sweetness of desire<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

That yearned from a bosom of mysterious Bliss,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Half manifested veiled Reality.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A soul not wrapped into its cloak of mind<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Could glimpse the true sense of a world of forms;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Illumined by a vision in the thought, .<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 199<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Upbuoyed by the heart’s understanding flame,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt could hold in the conscious ether of the spirit<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe divinity of a symbol universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis realm inspires us with our vaster hopes;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Its forces have made landings on our globe,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts signs have stamped their patterns on our lives:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It lends a sovereign movement to our fate,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts errant waves motive our life’s high surge.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll that we seek for is prefigured there<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd all we have not known nor even sought<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhich yet one day must be born in human hearts<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat the Timeless may fulfil itself in things.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIncarnate in the mystery of the days,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEternal in an unclosed Infinite,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA mounting endless possibility<\/span><\/p>\n

\nClimbs high upon a topless ladder of dream<\/span><\/p>\n

\nForever in the Being’s conscious trance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll on that ladder mounts to an unseen end.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAn Energy of perpetual transience makes<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe journey from which no return is sure,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe pilgrimage of Nature to the Unknown.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs if in her ascent to her lost source<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShe hoped to unroll all that could ever be,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer high procession moves from stage to stage,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA progress leap from sight to greater sight,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA process march from form to ampler form,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA caravan of the inexhaustible<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFormations of a boundless Thought and Force.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer timeless Power that lay once on the lap<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOf a beginningless and endless Calm,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNow severed from the Spirit’s immortal bliss,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nErects the type of all the joys she has lost;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 200<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Compelling transient substance into shape,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShe hopes by the creative act’s release<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo o’erleap sometimes the gulf she cannot fill,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo heal awhile the wound of severance,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEscape from the moment’s prison of littleness<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd meet the Eternal’s wide sublimities<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn the uncertain time-field portioned here.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlmost she nears what never can be attained;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

She shuts eternity into an hour<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And fills a little soul with the Infinite;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The Immobile leans to the magic of her call;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

She stands on a shore in the Illimitable,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Perceives the formless Dweller in all forms<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And feels around her infinity’s embrace.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her task no ending knows, she serves no aim<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But labours driven by a nameless Will<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

That came from some unknowable formless Vast.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

This is her secret and impossible task<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

To catch the boundless in a net of birth,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

To cast the spirit into physical form,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

To lend speech and thought to the Ineffable;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

She is pushed to reveal the ever Unmanifest.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYet by her skill the impossible has been done:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

She follows her sublime irrational plan,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInvents devices of her magic art<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo find new bodies for the Infinite<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd images of the Unimaginable;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

She has lured the Eternal into the arms of Time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven now herself she knows not what she has done.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor all is wrought beneath a baffling mask:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A semblance other than its hidden truth<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe aspect wears of an illusion’s trick,<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 201<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

A feigned time-driven unreality,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe unfinished creation of a changing soul<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn a body changing with the inhabitant.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInsignificant her means, infinite her work;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

On a great field of shapeless consciousness<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn little finite strokes of mind and sense<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAn endless truth she endlessly unfolds;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A timeless mystery works out in Time.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The greatness she has dreamed her acts have missed,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her labour is a passion and a pain,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A rapture and pang, her glory and her curse;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And yet she cannot choose but labours on;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her mighty heart forbids her to desist.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

As long as the world lasts her failure lives<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Astonishing and foiling Reason’s gaze,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A folly and a beauty unspeakable,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A superb madness of the will to live,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A daring, a delirium of delight.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

This is her being’s law, its sole resource;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

She sates, though satisfaction never comes,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer hungry will to lavish everywhere<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer many-imaged fictions of the Self<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd thousand fashions of one Reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA world she made touched by truth’s fleeing hem,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA world cast into a dream of what it seeks,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAn icon of truth, a conscious mystery’s shape.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt lingered not like the earth-mind hemmed in<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn solid barriers of apparent fact;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It dared to trust the dream-mind and the soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA hunter of spiritual verities<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStill only thought or guessed or held by faith,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt seized in imagination and confined<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 202<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

A painted bird of paradise in a cage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis greater life is enamoured of the Unseen;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It calls to some highest Light beyond its reach,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt can feel the Silence that absolves the soul;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

It feels a saviour touch, a ray divine:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Beauty and good and truth its godheads are.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt is near to heavenlier heavens than earth’s eyes see,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA direr darkness than man’s life can bear.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt has kinship with the demon and the god.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA strange enthusiasm has moved its heart;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It hungers for heights, it passions for the supreme.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt hunts for the perfect word, the perfect shape,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt leaps to the summit thought, the summit light.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor by the form the Formless is brought close<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd all perfection fringes the Absolute.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA child of heaven who never saw his home,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts impetus meets the eternal at a point:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

It can only near and touch, it cannot hold;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

It can only strain towards some bright extreme:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Its greatness is to seek and to create.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nOn every plane, this Greatness must create.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOn earth, in heaven, in hell she is the same;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Of every fate she takes her mighty part.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA guardian of the fire that lights the suns,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShe triumphs in her glory and her might:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Opposed, oppressed she bears God’s urge to be born:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

The spirit survives upon non-being’s ground,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWorld-force outlasts world-disillusion’s shock:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Dumb, she is still the Word, inert the Power.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHere fallen, a slave of death and ignorance,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo things deathless she is driven to aspire<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd moved to know even the Unknowable.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 203<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Even-nescient, null, her sleep creates a world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhen most unseen, most mightily she works;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Housed in the atom, buried in the clod<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer quick creative passion cannot cease.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInconscience is her long gigantic pause,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer cosmic swoon is a stupendous phase:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Time-born, she hides her immortality;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

In death, her bed, she waits the hour to rise.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven with the Light denied that sent her forth<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the hope dead she needed for her task,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven when her brightest stars are quenched in Night,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNourished by hardship and calamity<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd with pain for her body’s handmaid, masseuse, nurse,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer tortured invisible spirit continues still<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo toil though in darkness, to create though with pangs;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

She carries crucified God upon her breast.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn chill insentient depths where joy is none,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nImmured, oppressed by the resisting Void<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhere nothing moves and nothing can become,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStill she remembers, still invokes the skill<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Wonder-Worker gave her at her birth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nImparts to drowsy formlessness a shape,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nReveals a world where nothing was before.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn realms confined to a prone circle of death,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo a dark eternity of Ignorance,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA quiver in an inert inconscient mass,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr imprisoned in immobilised whorls of Force,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBy Matter’s blind compulsion deaf and mute<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShe reposes motionless in its dust of sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThen, for her rebel waking’s punishment<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGiven only hard mechanic Circumstance<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs the enginery of her magic craft<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 204<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

She fashions godlike marvels out of mud;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

In the plasm she sets her dumb immortal urge,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHelps the live tissue ‘to think, the closed sense to feel,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFlashes through the frail nerves poignant messages,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn a heart of flesh miraculously loves,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo brute bodies gives a soul, a will, a voice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEver she summons as by a sorcerer’s wand<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBeings and shapes and scenes innumerable,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTorch-bearers of her pomps through Time and Space.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis world is her long journey through the night,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe suns and planets lamps to light her road,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOur reason is the confidante of her thoughts,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOur senses are her vibrant witnesses.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere drawing her signs from things half true, half false,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShe labours to replace by realised dreams<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe memory of her lost eternity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThese are her deeds in this huge world-ignorance:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Till the veil is lifted, till the night is dead,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn light or dark she keeps her tireless search;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Time is her road of endless pilgrimage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOne mighty passion motives all her works.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer eternal Lover is her action’s cause;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

For him she leaped forth from the unseen Vasts<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo move here in a stark unconscious world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts acts are her commerce with her hidden Guest,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHis moods she takes for her heart’s passionate moulds;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

In beauty she treasures the sunlight of his smile.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Ashamed of her rich cosmic poverty,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

She cajoles with her small gifts his mightiness,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Holds with her scenes his look’s fidelity<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And woos his large-eyed wandering thoughts to dwell<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In figures of her million-impulsed Force.<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 205<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Only to attract her veiled companion<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And keep him close to her breast in her world-cloak<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nLest from her arms he turn to his formless peace,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Is her heart’s business and her clinging care.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Yet when he is most near, she feels him far.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

For contradiction is her nature’s law.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Although she is ever in him and he in her,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

As if unaware of the eternal tie,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her will is to shut God into her works<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And keep him as her cherished prisoner<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

That never they may part again in Time.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A sumptuous chamber of the Spirit’s sleep<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

At first she made, a deep interior room,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Where he slumbers as if a forgotten guest.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut now she turns to break the oblivious spell,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Awakes the sleeper on the sculptured couch;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

She finds again the Presence in the form<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd in the light that wakes with him recovers<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nA meaning in the hurry and trudge of Time,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And through this mind that once obscured the soul<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Passes a glint of unseen deity.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Across a luminous dream of spirit-space<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

She builds creation like a rainbow bridge<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Between the original Silence and the Void.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A net is made of the mobile universe;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

She weaves a snare for the conscious Infinite.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA knowledge is with her that conceals its steps<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd seems a mute omnipotent Ignorance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA might is with her that makes wonders true;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The incredible is her stuff of common fact.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer purposes, her workings riddles prove;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Examined, they grow other than they were,<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 206<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Explained, they seem yet more inexplicable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven in our world a mystery has reigned<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEarth’s cunning screen of trivial plainness hides;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Her larger levels are of sorceries made.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere the enigma shows its splendid prism,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere is no deep disguise of commonness;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Occult, profound comes all experience,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Marvel is ever new, miracle divine.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

There is a screened burden, a mysterious touch,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

There is a secrecy of hidden sense.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Although no earthen mask weighs on her face,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Into herself she flees from her own sight.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

All forms are tokens of some veiled idea<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Whose covert purpose lurks from mind’s pursuit,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Yet is a womb of sovereign consequence.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

There every thought and feeling is an act,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And every act a symbol and a sign,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And every symbol hides a living power.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A universe she builds from truths and myths,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But what she needed most she cannot build;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

All shown is a figure or copy of the Truth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut the Real veils from her its mystic face,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll else she finds, there lacks eternity;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

All is sought out but missed the Infinite.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\nA consciousness lit by a Truth above<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWas felt; it saw the light but not the Truth:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

It caught the Idea and built from it a world;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

It made an Image there and called it God.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYet something true and inward harboured there.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe beings of that world of greater life,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTenants of a larger air and freer space,<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 207<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Live not by the body or in outward things:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

A deeper living was their seat of self.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn that intense domain of intimacy<\/span><\/p>\n

\nObjects dwell as companions of the soul;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe body’s actions are a minor script,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe surface rendering of a life within.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll forces are Life’s retinue in that world<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd thought and body as her handmaids move.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe universal widenesses give her room:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll feel the cosmic movement in their acts<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd are the instruments of her cosmic might.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr their own self they make their universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn all who have risen to a greater Life<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA voice of unborn things whispers to the ear,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo their eyes visited by some high sunlight<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAspiration shows the image of a crown:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

To work out a seed that she has thrown within,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo achieve her power in them her creatures live.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEach is a greatness growing towards the heights<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr from his inner centre oceans out;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In circling ripples of concentric power<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey swallow, glutted, their environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven of that largeness many a cabin make;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In narrower breadths and briefer vistas pent<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey live content with some small greatness won.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo rule the little empire of themselves,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo be a figure in their private world<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd make the milieu’s joys and griefs their own<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd satisfy their life-motives and life-wants<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIs charge enough and office for this strength,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA steward of the Person and his fate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis was transition-line and starting-point,<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 208<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

A first immigration into heavenliness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor all who cross into that brilliant sphere:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

These are the kinsmen of our earthly race;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

This region borders on our mortal state.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

This wider world our greater movements gives,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts strong formations build our growing selves,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts creatures are our brighter replicas,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nComplete the types we only initiate<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd are securely what we strive to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs if thought-out eternal characters,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEntire, not pulled as we by contrary tides,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey follow the unseen leader in the heart,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTheir lives obey the inner nature’s law.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere is kept grandeur’s store, the hero’s mould;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The soul is the watchful builder of its fate;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

None is a spirit indifferent and inert;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

They choose their side, they see the god they adore.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA battle is joined between the true and false,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA pilgrimage sets out to the divine Light.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor even Ignorance there aspires to know<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd shines with the lustre of a distant star;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

There is a knowledge in the heart of sleep<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd Nature comes to them as a conscious force.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAn ideal is their leader and their king:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Aspiring to the monarchy of the sun<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

They call in Truth for their high government,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Hold her incarnate in their daily acts<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And fill their thoughts with her inspired voice<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And shape their lives into her breathing form,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Till in her sun-gold godhead they too share.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or to the truth of Darkness they subscribe;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Whether for Heaven or Hell they must wage war:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 209<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nWarriors of Good, they serve a shining cause<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or are Evil’s soldiers in the pay of Sin.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

For evil and good an equal tenure keep<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Wherever Knowledge is Ignorance’s twin,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAll powers of Life towards their godhead tend<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In the wideness and the daring of that air,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Each builds its temple and expands its cult,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And Sin too there is a divinity.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAffirming the beauty and splendour of her law<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

She claims life as her natural domain,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Assumes the world’s throne or dons the papal robe:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Her worshippers proclaim her sacred right.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA red-tiaraed falsehood they revere,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWorship the shadow of a crooked god,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAdmit the black Idea that twists the brain<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr lie with the harlot Power that slays the Soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA mastering virtue statuesques the pose,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr a titan passion goads to a proud unrest:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

At Wisdom’s altar they are kings and priests<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr their life a sacrifice to an idol of Power.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr Beauty shines on them like a wandering star;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Too far to reach, passionate they follow her light;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

In Art and Life they catch the All-Beautiful’s ray<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd make the world their radiant treasure house:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Even common figures are with marvel robed;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A charm and greatness locked in every hour<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAwakes the joy which sleeps in all things made.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A mighty victory or a mighty fall,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A throne in heaven or a pit in hell,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The dual Energy they have justified<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd marked their souls with her tremendous seal:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nWhatever Fate may do to them they have earned;<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 210<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Something they have done, something they have been, they Jive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere Matter is soul’s result and not its cause.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn a contrary balance to earth’s truth of things<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe gross weighs less, the subtle counts for more;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

On inner values hangs the outer plan.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs quivers with the thought the expressive word,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs yearns the act with the passion of the soul<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis world’s apparent sensible design<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLooks vibrant back to some interior might.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA Mind not limited by external sense<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGave figures to the spirit’s imponderables,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe world’s impacts without channels registered<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd turned into the body’s concrete thrill<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe vivid workings of a bodiless Force;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Powers here subliminal that act unseen<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr in ambush crouch waiting behind the wall<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCame out in front uncovering their face.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe occult grew there overt, the obvious kept<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA covert turn and shouldered the unknown;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The unseen was felt and jostled visible shapes.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In the communion of two meeting minds<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Thought looked at thought and had no need of speech;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Emotion clasped emotion in two hearts,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

They felt each other’s thrill in the flesh and nerves<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or melted each in each and grew immense<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

As when two houses bum and fire joins fire:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Hate grappled hate and love broke in on love,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWill wrestled with will on mind’s invisible ground;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Others’ sensations passing through like waves<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLeft quivering the subtle body’s frame,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTheir anger rushed galloping in brute attack,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA charge of trampling hooves on shaken soil;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 211<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

One felt another’s grief invade the breast,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnother’s joy exulting ran through the blood:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Hearts could draw close through distance, voices near<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat spoke upon the shore of alien seas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere beat a throb of living interchange:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Being felt being even when afar<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd consciousness replied to consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd yet the ultimate oneness was not there.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere was a separateness of soul from soul:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

An inner wall of silence could be built,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAn armour of conscious might protect and shield;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The being could be closed in and solitary;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

One could remain apart in self, alone.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Identity was not yet nor union’s peace.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

All was imperfect still, half-known, half-done:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

The miracle of
\nInconscience overpassed,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe miracle of the Superconscient still<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUnknown, self-wrapped, unfelt, unknowable,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLooked down on them, origin of all they were.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs forms they came of the formless Infinite,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs names lived of a nameless Eternity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe beginning and the end were there occult,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA middle term worked unexplained, abrupt:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

They were words that spoke to a vast wordless Truth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThey were figures crowding an unfinished sum.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNone truly knew himself or knew the world<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr the Reality living there enshrined:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Only they knew what Mind could take and build<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOut of the secret Supermind’s huge store.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA darkness under them, a bright Void above,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUncertain they lived in a great climbing space;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

By mysteries they explained a Mystery,<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 212<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

A riddling answer met the riddle of things.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs he moved in this ether of ambiguous life,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHimself he grew a riddle to himself,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs symbols he saw all and sought their sense.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Across the leaping springs of death and birth<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd over shifting borders of soul-change,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA hunter on the Spirit’s creative track,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe followed in life’s fine and mighty trails<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPursuing her sealed formidable delight<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn a perilous adventure without close.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAt first no aim appeared in these large steps:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Only the wide source he saw of all things here<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLooking towards a wider source beyond.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor as she drew away from earthly lines,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA tenser drag was felt from the Unknown,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA higher context of delivering thought<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDrove her towards marvel and discovery;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

There came a high release from pettier cares,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A mightier image of desire and hope,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A vaster formula, a greater scene.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Ever she circled towards some far-off Light:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her signs still covered more than they revealed,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But tied to some immediate sight and will<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

They lost their purport in the joy of use,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Till stripped of their infinite meaning they became<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A cipher gleaming with unreal sense.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Armed with a magical and haunted bow<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

She aimed at a target kept invisible<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And ever deemed remote though always near.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

As one who spells illumined characters,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The key-book of a crabbed magician text,<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 213<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

He scanned her subtle tangled weird designs<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And the screened difficult theorem of her clues,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Traced in the monstrous sands of desert Time<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The thread beginnings of her titan works,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Watched her charade of action for some hint,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Read the NO-gestures of her silhouettes,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And strove to capture in their burdened drift<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The dance-fantasia of her sequences<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Escaping into rhythmic mystery,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A glimmer of fugitive feet on fleeing soil.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn the labyrinth pattern of her thoughts and hopes<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And the byways of her intimate desires,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn the complex comers crowded with her dreams<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And rounds crossed by an intrigue of irrelevant rounds,.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A wanderer straying amid fugitive scenes<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

He lost its signs and chased each failing guess.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Ever he met key-words, ignorant of their key.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A sun that dazzled its own eye of sight,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A luminous enigma’s brilliant hood<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Lit the dense purple barrier of thought’s sky:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A dim large trance showed to the night her stars.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

As if sitting near an open window’s gap,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

He read by lightning-flash on crowding flash<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Chapters of her metaphysical romance<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Of the soul’s search for lost Reality<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nAnd her fictions drawn from spirit’s authentic fact,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her caprices and conceits and meanings locked,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her rash unseizable freaks and mysteried turns.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The magnificent wrappings of her secrecy<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

That fold her desirable body out of sight,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe strange significant forms woven on her robe,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her meaningful outlines of the souls of things<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 214<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

He saw her false transparencies of thought-hue,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer rich brocades with imaged fancies sewn<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd mutable masks and broideries of disguise.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA thousand baffling faces of the Truth<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLooked at him from her forms with unknown eyes<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd wordless mouths unrecognisable,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSpoke from the figures other masquerade,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr peered from the recondite magnificence<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd subtle splendour of her draperies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn sudden scintillations of the unknown,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInexpressive sounds became veridical,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIdeas that seemed unmeaning flashed out truth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nVoices that came from unseen waiting worlds<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUttered the syllables of the Unmanifest<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo clothe the body of the mystic Word,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd wizard diagrams of the occult Law<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSealed some precise unreadable harmony,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr used hue and figure to reconstitute<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe herald blazon of Time’s secret things.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn her green wildernesses and lurking depths,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn her thickets of joy where danger clasps delight,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe glimpsed the hidden wings of her songster hopes,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA glimmer of blue and gold and scarlet fire.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn her covert lanes, bordering her chance field-paths<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd by her singing rivulets and calm lakes<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe found the glow of her golden fruits of bliss<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the beauty of her flowers of dream and muse.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs if a miracle of heart’s change by joy<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe watched in the alchemist radiance of her suns<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe crimson outburst of one secular flower<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOn the tree of sacrifice of spiritual love.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn the sleepy splendour of her noons he saw,<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 215<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

A perpetual repetition through the hours,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThought’s dance of dragon-flies on mystery’s stream<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat skim but never test its murmurs’ race,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd heard the laughter of her rose desires<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRunning as if to escape from longed-for hands,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nJingling sweet anklet-bells of fantasy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAmidst live symbols of her occult power<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe moved and felt them as close real forms:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In that life more concrete than the lives of men<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThrobbed heart-beats of the hidden reality:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Embodied was there what we but think and feel,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSelf-framed what here takes outward borrowed shapes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA comrade of Silence on her austere heights<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAccepted by her mighty loneliness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe stood with her on meditating peaks<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhere life and being are a sacrament<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOffered to the Reality beyond,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd saw her loose into Infinity<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer hooded eagles of significance,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMessengers of Thought to the Unknowable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIdentified in soul-vision and soul-sense,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEntering into her depths as into a house,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll he became that she was or longed to be,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe thought with her thoughts and journeyed with her steps,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLived with her breath and scanned all with her eyes<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat he might learn the secret of her soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA witness overmastered by his scene,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe admired her splendid front of pomp and play<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the marvels of her rich and delicate craft,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd thrilled to the insistence of her cry;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Impassioned he bore the sorceries of her might,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFelt laid on him her abrupt mysterious will,<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 216<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Her hands that knead fate in their violent grasp,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer touch that moves, her powers that seize and drive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut this too he saw, her soul that wept within,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer seekings vain that clutch at fleeing truth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer hopes whose sombre gaze mates with despair,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe passion that possessed her longing limbs,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe trouble and rapture of her yearning breasts,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer mind that toils unsatisfied with its fruits,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer heart that captures not the one Beloved.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlways he met a veiled and seeking Force,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAn exiled goddess building mimic heavens,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA Sphinx whose eyes look up to a hidden Sun.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Ever he felt near a spirit in her forms:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Its passive presence was her nature’s strength;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

This sole is real in apparent things,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Even upon earth the spirit is life’s key,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But her solid outsides nowhere bear its trace.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Its stamp on her acts is undiscoverable.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A pathos of lost heights is its appeal.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Only sometimes is caught a shadowy line<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

That seems a hint of veiled reality.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Life stared at him with vague confused outlines<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Offering a picture the eyes could not keep,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A story that was yet not written there.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

As in a fragmentary half-lost design<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Life’s meanings fled from the pursuing eye.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Life’s visage hides life’s real self from sight;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Life’s secret sense is written within, above.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe thought that gives it sense lives far beyond;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It is not seen in its half-finished design.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn vain we hope to read the baffling signs<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 217<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Or find-the word of the half-played charade.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOnly in that greater life a cryptic thought<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIs found, is hinted some interpreting word<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat makes the earth-myth a tale intelligible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSomething was seen at last that looked like truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn a half-lit air of hazardous mystery<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe eye that looks at the dark half of truth<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMade out an image mid a vivid blur<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd peering through a mist of subtle tints<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe saw a half-blind chained divinity<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBewildered by the world in which he moved,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYet conscious of some light prompting his soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAttracted to strange far-off shimmerings,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLed by the fluting of a distant Player<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe sought his way amid life’s laughter and call<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the index chaos of her myriad steps<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTowards some total deep infinitude.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAround crowded the forest of her signs:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

At hazard he read by arrow-leaps of Thought<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat hit the mark by guess or luminous chance,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer changing coloured road-lights of idea<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd her signals of uncertain swift event,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe hieroglyphs of her symbol pageantries<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd her landmarks in the tangled paths of Time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn her mazes of approach and of retreat<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo every side she draws him and repels,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut drawn too near escapes from his embrace,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll ways she leads him but no way is sure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAllured by the many-toned marvel of her chant,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAttracted by the witchcraft of her moods<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd moved by her casual touch to joy and grief,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe loses himself in her but wins her not.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 218<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A fugitive paradise smiles at him from her eyes:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

He dreams of her beauty made for ever his,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe dreams of his mastery her limbs shall bear,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe dreams of the magic of her breasts of bliss.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn her illumined script, her fanciful<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTranslation of God’s pure original text,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe thinks to read the Scripture Wonderful,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHieratic key to unknown beatitudes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut the Word of Life is hidden in its script,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe chant of Life has lost its divine note.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUnseen, a captive in a house of sound,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe spirit lost in the splendour of a dream<\/span><\/p>\n

\nListens to a thousand-voiced illusion’s ode.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA delicate weft of sorcery steals the heart<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr a fiery magic tints her tones and hues,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYet they but wake a thrill of transient grace;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A vagrant march struck by the wanderer Time<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

They call to a brief unsatisfied delight<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or wallow in ravishments of mind and sense,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But miss the luminous answer of the soul.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A blind heart-throb that reaches joy through tears,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A yearning towards peaks for ever unreached,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

An ecstasy of unfulfilled desire<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Track the last heavenward climbings of her voice.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Transmuted are past suffering’s memories<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Into an old sadness’s sweet escaping trail:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Turned are her tears to gems of diamond pain,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer sorrow into a magic crown of song.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBrief are her snatches of felicity<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat touch the surface, then escape or die:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A lost remembrance echoes in her depths,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA deathless longing is hers, a veiled self’s call;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 219<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

A prisoner in the mortal’s limiting world,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA spirit wounded by .life sobs in her breast,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA cherished suffering is her deepest cry.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA wanderer on forlorn despairing routes,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlong the roads of sound a frustrate voice<\/span><\/p>\n

\nForsaken cries to a forgotten bliss.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAstray in the echo caverns of Desire,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt guards the phantoms of a soul’s dead hopes<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd keeps alive the voice of perished things<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr lingers upon sweet and errant notes<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHunting for pleasure in the heart of pain.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA fateful hand has touched the cosmic chords<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the intrusion of a troubled strain<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCovers the inner music’s hidden key<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat guides unheard the surface cadences.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYet is it joy to live and to create<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd joy to love and labour though all fails,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd joy to seek though all we find deceives<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd all on which we lean betrays our trust;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Yet something in its depths was worth the pain,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA passionate memory haunts with ecstasy’s fire.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven grief has joy hidden beneath its roots:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

For nothing is truly vain the One has made:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

In our defeated hearts God’s strength survives<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd victory’s star still lights our desperate road,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOur death is made a passage to new worlds.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis to Life’s music gives its anthem swell.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo all she lends the glory of her voice;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Heaven’s raptures whisper to her heart and pass,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEarth’s transient yearnings cry from her lips and fade.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlone the God-given hymn escapes her art<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat came with her from her spiritual home<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 220<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

But stopped half-way and failed, a silent word<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAwake in some deep pause of waiting worlds,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA murmur suspended in eternity’s hush:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

But no breath comes from the supernal peace:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A sumptuous interlude occupies the ear<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And the heart listens and the soul consents,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

An evanescent music it repeats<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Wasting on transience Time’s eternity.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A tremolo of the voices of the hours<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Oblivious screens the high intended theme<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The self-embodying spirit came to play<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

On the vast clavichord of Nature-Force.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Only a mighty murmur here and there<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Of the eternal Word, the blissful Voice<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or Beauty’s touch transfiguring heart and sense,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A wandering splendour and a mystic cry,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Recalls the strength and sweetness heard no more.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Here is the gap, here stops or sinks life’s force;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

This deficit paupers the magician’s skill:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

This want makes all the rest seem thin and bare.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA half-sight draws the horizon of her acts:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Her depths remember what she came to do,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But the mind has forgotten or the heart mistakes:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In Nature’s endless lines is lost the God.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In knowledge to sum up omniscience,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In action to erect the Omnipotent,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

To create her Creator here was her heart’s conceit,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

To invade the cosmic scene with utter God.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Toiling to transform, the still far Absolute<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Into an all-fulfilling epiphany,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Into an utterance of the Ineffable,<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 221<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

She would bring the glory here of the Absolute’s force,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Change poise into creation’s rhythmic swing,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Marry with a sky of calm a sea of bliss.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A fire to call eternity into Time,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Make body’s joy as vivid as the soul’s,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nEarth she would lift to neighbourhood with heaven,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Labours life to equate with the Supreme<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And reconcile the Eternal and the Abyss.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her pragmatism of the transcendent Truth<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Fills silence with the voices of the gods,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But in the cry the single Voice is lost.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

For Nature’s vision climbs beyond her acts.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A life of gods in heaven she sees above,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A demi-god emerging from an ape<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Is all she can in our mortal element.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Here the half-god, the half-titan are her peak:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

This greater life wavers twixt earth and sky.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA poignant paradox pursues her dreams:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Her hooded energy moves an ignorant world<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo look for a joy her own strong clasp puts off:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In her embrace it cannot turn to its source.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nImmense her power, endless her act’s vast drive,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAstray is its significance and lost.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlthough she carries in her secret breast<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe law and journeying curve of all things born<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer knowledge partial seems, her purpose small;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

On a soil of yearning tread her sumptuous hours.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA leaden Nescience weighs the wings of Thought,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer power oppresses the being with its garbs,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHer action prisons its immortal gaze.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA sense of limit haunts her masteries<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd nowhere is assured content or peace:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 222<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

For all the depth and beauty of her work<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA wisdom lacks that sets the spirit free.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAn old and faded charm had now her face<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd palled for him her quick and curious lore,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHis wide soul asked a deeper joy than hers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOut of her daedal lines he sought escape;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

But neither gate of horn nor ivory<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe found nor postern of spiritual sight.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere was no issue from that dreamlike space.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOur being must move eternally through Time;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Death helps us not, vain is the hope to cease;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

A secret Will compels us to endure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOur life’s repose is in the Infinite,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt cannot end, its end is Life supreme.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDeath is a passage, not the goal of our walk:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Some ancient deep impulsion labours on:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Our souls are dragged as with a hidden leash,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCarried from birth to birth, from world to world,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOur acts prolong after the body’s fall \u201e<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe old perpetual journey without pause.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNo silent peak is found where Time can rest.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis was a magic stream that reached no sea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHowever far he went, wherever turned,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe wheel of works ran with him and outstripped;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Always a farther task was left to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA beat of action and a cry of search<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFor ever grew in that unquiet world;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A busy murmur filled the heart of Time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll was contrivance and unceasing stir.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA hundred ways to live were tried in vain:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A sameness that assumed a thousand forms<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStrove to escape from its long monotone<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 223<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

And made new things that soon were like the old.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA curious decoration-lured the eye<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd novel values furbished ancient themes<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo cheat the mind with the idea of change.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA different picture that was still the same<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAppeared upon the cosmic vague background.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOnly another labyrinthine house<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOf creatures and their doings and events,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA city of the traffic of bound souls,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA market of creation and her wares<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWas offered to the labouring mind and heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA circuit ending where it first began<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIs dubbed the forward and eternal march<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOf progress on perfection’s unknown road.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEach final scheme leads to a sequel plan,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYet every new departure seems the last,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInspired evangel, theory’s ultimate peak,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nProclaiming a panacea for all Time’s ills<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr carrying thought in its ultimate zenith flight<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd trumpeting supreme discovery;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Each brief idea, a structure perishable,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPublishes the immortality of its rule,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts claim to be the perfect form of things,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTruth’s last epitome. Time’s golden best.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut nothing has been achieved of infinite worth:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

A world made ever anew, never complete,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Piled always half-attempts on lost attempts<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And saw a fragment as the eternal Whole.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In the aimless mounting total of things done<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Existence seemed a vain necessity’s act,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A wrestle of eternal opposites<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In a clasped antagonism's close-locked
\nembrace, <\/font>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 224<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

A play without denouement or idea,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA hunger march of lives without a goal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr, written on a bare black-board of Space,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA futile and recurring sum of souls,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA hope that failed, a light that never shone,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe labour of an unaccomplished Force<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTied to its acts in a dim eternity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere is no end or none can yet be seen:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Although defeated, life must struggle on;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Always she sees a crown she cannot grasp;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Her eyes are fixed beyond her fallen state.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere quivers still within her breast and ours<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA glory that was once and is no more,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr there calls to us from some unfulfilled beyond<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA greatness yet unreached by the halting world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn a memory behind our mortal sense<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA dream persists of larger happier air<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBreathing around free hearts of joy and love,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nForgotten by us, immortal in lost Time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA ghost of bliss pursues her haunted depths;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

For she remembers still though now so far<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Her realm of golden ease and glad desire<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And the beauty and strength and happiness that were hers<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In the sweetness of her glowing paradise,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In her kingdom of immortal ecstasy<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Half-way between God’s silence and the Abyss.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

This knowledge in our hidden parts we keep;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Awake to a vague mystery’s appeal,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

We meet a deep unseen Reality<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Far truer than the world’s face of present Truth:<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

We are chased by a self we cannot now recall<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd moved by a Spirit we must still become.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 225<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

As one who has lost the kingdom of his soul,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWe look back to some god-phase of our birth<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOther than this imperfect creature here<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd hope in this or a diviner world<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTo recover yet from Heaven’s patient guard<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhat by our mind’s forgetfulness we miss,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOur being’s natural felicity,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOur heart’s delight we have exchanged for grief,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe body’s thrill we bartered for mere pain,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe bliss for which our mortal nature yearns<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAs yearns an obscure moth to blazing Light.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOur life is a march to a victory never won.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis wave of being longing for delight,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis eager turmoil of unsatisfied strengths,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThese long far files of forward-striving hopes<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLift worshipping eyes to the blue Void called heaven<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLooking for the golden Hand that never came,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe advent for which all creation waits,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe beautiful visage of Eternity<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThat shall appear upon the roads of Time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYet still to ourselves we say rekindling faith,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n"Oh, surely one day he shall come to our cry,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOne day he shall create our life anew<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd utter the magic formula of peace<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd bring perfection to the scheme of things.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOne day he shall descend to life and earth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLeaving the secrecy of the eternal doors,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInto a world that cries to him for help,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd bring the truth that sets the spirit free,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe joy that is the baptism of the soul,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe strength that is the outstretched arm of Love.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOne day he shall lift his beauty’s dreadful veil,<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 226<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Impose delight on the world’s beating heart<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd bale his secret body of light and bliss."<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut now we strain to reach an unknown goal:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

There is no end of seeking and of birth,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere is no end of dying and return;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The life that wins its aim asks greater aims,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe life that fails and dies must live again;<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Till it has found itself it cannot cease.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

All must be done for which life and death were made.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

But who shall say that even then is rest?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Or there repose and action are the same<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In the deep breast of God’s supreme delight.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

In a high state where ignorance is no more,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Each movement is a wave of peace and bliss,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Repose God’s motionless creative force,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Action a ripple in the Infinite<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And birth a gesture of Eternity.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

A sun of transfiguration still can shine<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

And Night can bare its core of mystic light;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The self-cancelling, self-afflicting paradox<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Into a self-luminous mystery might change,<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

The imbroglio into a joyful miracle.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Then God could be visible here, here take a shape;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Disclosed would be the spirit’s identity;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

Life would reveal her true immortal face.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut now a termless labour is her fate:<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

In its recurrent decimal of events<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

<\/p>\n

Birth, death appear as its vibrating points;<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

The old question-mark margins each finished page,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEach volume of her effort’s history.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA limping Yes through the aeons journeys still<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAccompanied by an eternal No.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font>
\nPage \u2013 227<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

All seems in vain, yet endless is the game.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nImpassive turns the ever-circling Wheel,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLife has no issue, death brings no release.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA prisoner of itself the being lives<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd keeps its futile immortality,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nExtinction is denied, its sole escape.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAn error of the gods has made the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr indifferent the Eternal watches Time.<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 228<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  CANTO SIX   THE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE GREATER LIFE   AS one who between dim receding walls Towards the far gleam of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-savitri-1954","wpcat-78-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}