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|
<!DOCTYPE html>
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Anthology
of modern indian poetry.
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<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74751 ***</div>
<hr class="full">
<div class="c">
<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="353" height="550"
alt="[The image of the book's cover is unavailable.]">
</div>
<p class="nind"><b>The Wisdom of the East Series<br>
<span class="smcap">Edited by</span><br>
L. CRANMER-BYNG<br>
Dr. S. A. KAPADIA</b><br><br><br></p>
<p class="c">
ANTHOLOGY OF<br>
MODERN INDIAN POETRY
<br><br><br>
<span class="smcap">All Rights Reserved</span></p>
<p class="c">WISDOM OF THE EAST</p>
<h1>ANTHOLOGY OF<br>
MODERN INDIAN<br>
POETRY</h1>
<p class="c">EDITED BY<br>
GWENDOLINE GOODWIN<br>
<br>
<br>
<img src="images/colophon.png"
width="175"
height="133"
alt="">
<br>
<br>
LONDON<br>
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W<br>
<br>
<br>
<span class="smcap">First Edition</span>, 1927<br>
<br>
<br>
<i>Printed in Great Britain by<br>
Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.</i><br>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_5">{5}</a></span></p>
<h2><a id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
<table>
<tr><td> </td><td class="rt"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Preface</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_9">9</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Acknowledgments</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_19">19</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">An Invocation</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_23">23</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Secrets of the Self</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_27">27</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Worship</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_34">34</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Beyond the Verge of Time—Steps</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_35">35</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Ego—Fire</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_36">36</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Artist</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_37">37</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Imagery</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_38">38</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Transience—O Long Black Hair—Revelation</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_39">39</a></td></tr>
<tr><td>“<span class="smcap">Spring that in my courtyard</span>”—“<span class="smcap">This day will pass</span>”</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_40">40</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Urvasi</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_42">42</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Open Thou Thy Door of Mercy</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_47">47</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Dancer</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_48">48</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Acknowledgment</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_49">49</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Remembrance—The Visible</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_50">50</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_6">{6}</a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">In the Light</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_51">51</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Call and Bring Her</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_52">52</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Basanta Panchami</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_53">53</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">A Woman’s Beauty</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_54">54</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">An Evening on the Lagoon—At the Temple</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_55">55</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Raksha Bandhan</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_56">56</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Longings—Thoughts</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_57">57</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Lovers</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_58">58</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">A Blue Dream</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_59">59</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Tulip</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_60">60</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Return to Khairpur—India: Entertaining Twilight</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_61">61</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Roshanara</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_66">66</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">In Praise of Henna</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_68">68</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Imperial Delhi</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_69">69</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Dirge</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_70">70</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Spring—Cradle-song</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_71">71</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">June Sunset</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_72">72</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Bunkim Chandra Chatterji</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_73">73</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">A Rose of Women—The Island Grave</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_75">75</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Invitation</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_76">76</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">A Child’s Imagination</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_77">77</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_7">{7}</a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Evening—The Sea at Night—Lachhi</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_78">78</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Azmē</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_79">79</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Awake, my Friend</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_81">81</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Marriage Song</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_82">82</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Mystic Love Song from “Thirty Indian Songs"</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_83">83</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Punjab Autumn: The Season of the Cooling Dew</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_84">84</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Râjhans (The Prince of Swans)</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_89">89</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Later Lyrics: Poplar, Beech, and Weeping Willow</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_90">90</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Orphic Mysteries: The Yellow Butterfly</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_93">93</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Myvanwy</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_96">96</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Kismet</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_99">99</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Tansen</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_100">100</a></td></tr>
<tr><td>“<span class="smcap">The high ambition of the drop of rain</span>”</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_101">101</a></td></tr>
<tr><td>“<span class="smcap">How difficult is the thorny way of strife</span>”</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_102">102</a></td></tr>
<tr><td>“<span class="smcap">Thy beauty flashes like a sword</span>”</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_103">103</a></td></tr>
<tr><td>“<span class="smcap">I shall not try to flee the sword of death</span>”</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_104">104</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_8">{8}</a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Voice in the Air</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_105">105</a></td></tr>
<tr><td>“<span class="smcap">All this is rhythm</span>”</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_112">112</a></td></tr>
<tr><td>“<span class="smcap">Friend, dwell thou within</span>”—“<span class="smcap">Thou art the rose</span>”</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_113">113</a></td></tr>
<tr><td>“<span class="smcap">Snow-blossoms, snow-blossoms</span>”</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_114">114</a></td></tr>
<tr><td>“<span class="smcap">The rose of eternity</span>”</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_116">116</a></td></tr>
<tr><td>“<span class="smcap">The blue of Indra</span>”</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_117">117</a></td></tr>
<tr><td>“<span class="smcap">The shadow of a flying bird</span>”</td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_118">118</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Love’s Samādhi—A Cradle Song</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_120">120</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Way of Poverty</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_121">121</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Last Prayer—Union with Christ</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_122">122</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Peace</span></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_123">123</a></td></tr>
</table>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_9">{9}</a></span></p>
<h2><a id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Francis Bacon</span> it was who said, “Prefaces are great wastes of time, and
tho’ they seem to proceed of modesty, they are bravery.” It is
necessary, however, in the present instance to make a stand against the
somewhat sweeping convictions of the Elizabethan master. The call of
Youth in India is a hot young call, trumpeting down the ages through a
maze of polytheistic tribute, and emerging in the twentieth century with
some of its original clearness of sound drowned by a Gargantuan thunder
of Western drums. The Indian poet of to-day is torn, like the Indian
painter, between admiration for Western models and a desire to mould
himself thereon, and an inherent Indian tradition that runs in his veins
and will not be denied. Indeed, it is pity to deny it. Sir Edmund Gosse
persuaded Sarojini Naidu to tear up her poems about English life and to
write of her own Indian bazaars and cities, villages and festivals, for
which persuasion we are indeed indebted to Sir Edmund. We of the West do
not want from the East poetic edifices built upon a foundation<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_10">{10}</a></span> of Yeats
and Shelley and Walt Whitman. We want genuine Taj Mahals and Juma
Masjids, cameos of rural sweetness and the hopes of faithful hearts. We
want to hear the flute of Krishna as Radha heard it, to fall under the
spell of the blue god “in the lotus-heart of dreams.” For there is much
to learn from the melody of Eastern thought. It is, perhaps, a minor
melody born of the mating of Love and Death, but it has its seed in an
innate spiritual rapture that no Western veneer can wholly cover.</p>
<p>In the bulk of Indian poetry religious feeling predominates, as is only
natural in a country of many but steadfast faiths.</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“To act, to think, to feel aright until<br></span>
<span class="i0">He knows his will as one with Allah’s will.”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="nind">Subjugation of the Self leading to a merging of that Self with God.
India writes largely from the “Inner Vision.” This disallows of foreign
influence, but the poet is necessarily inspired as well by an everyday
atmosphere which he enriches from the strength of his own perception.
The steps of the bathing-ghâts in Calcutta may be of Sheffield
cast-iron, but the country that could produce a Taj Mahal—“stone turned
into a dream,” D. G. Mukerji calls it—will never lose the innate
artistic vision of her soul. So the creative prayers of this mighty
cosmopolitan multitude surge upwards in a song of glory till they reach
the stars. Love of life is love of art<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_11">{11}</a></span> because life is art and art is
life. We chase after fleeting perfection, a rosy cloud, a glint of
eternity in a lily-pool, a drop of dew trembling on a flower-petal,
moments of heaven in worlds of chaos. To catch a mood of Nature and
transfer it to paper; to wring from the heart of an instrument one swift
emotional phase after another: is it futile? is it useless?</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“Am I one of the trees in the night,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Or are the trees human beings?”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="nind">asks Harindranath Chattopadhyaya in one of his poems not published here,
echoing the cry of Li Po:</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“Chuang Chou in a dream became a butterfly<br></span>
<span class="i0">And the butterfly became Chuang Chou at waking:<br></span>
<span class="i0">Which was the real, the butterfly or the man?”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>In Indian poetry, the mystic element shines through the outer decorative
aspect.</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“Our dreams and longings cover deeper dreams<br></span>
<span class="i0">And longings in the silence far away.”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="nind">We are roused from the beautiful lyrical lilt of Chattopadhyaya and of
his sister, Sarojini Naidu, by the thunder of Muhammad Iqbal’s
persuasive eloquence. He is a barrister-at-law at Lahore, an active
Moslem opposed to Platonic illusion and non-progressive idealism.</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“Plato, the prime ascetic and sage,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Was one of that ancient flock of sheep.<br></span>
<span class="i0">His Pegasus went astray in the darkness of philosophy<br></span>
<span class="i0">And galloped over the mountains of Being.<br></span>
<span class="i0">He was so fascinated by the Ideal<br></span>
<span class="i0">That he made head, eye, and ear of no account.”<br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_12">{12}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<p>Whether one agrees with his outlook or not, the fact remains that one
cannot fail to be stirred by the intensely fiery spirit of Iqbal’s
rhetorical writing. He is a leader. He sweeps everything before him like
a great wind swirling through a forest of pines. He would re-create
Islam, an active, non-Imperialistic, non-sensual Islam. In his own
words, he is “the voice of the poet of To-morrow.” As Mr. R. A.
Nicholson (his translator) says, the book “Asrar-i-Khudi” (Secrets of
the Self), from which I have taken the extracts, “presents certain
obscurities which no translation can entirely remove.” That is, of
course, to European readers or to those not conversant with Persian
poetry. For the book was originally written in Persian.</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“Although the language of Hind is sweet as sugar,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Yet sweeter is the fashion of Persian speech.”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="nind">He is an inspiring philosopher.</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“Thou art fire: fill the world with thy glow!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Make others burn with thy burning!<br></span>
<span class="idtts">. . . . . .<br></span>
<span class="i0">Up, and re-inspire every living soul!”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>I have spoken of the Youth of India, but the contributors to this volume
range in age from the twenties to the seventies. There is little need
for me to speak of Rabindranath Tagore. Mr. Edward Thompson (to whom I
am indebted for the three translations) has acted in a Boswellian
capacity, and the poet is as well known<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_13">{13}</a></span> in England as are the great
poets of our own nationality. I would draw attention, however, to the
beautiful concluding lines of “Urvasi”:</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“On the night of full moon, when the world brims with laughter,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Memory, from somewhere far away, pipes a flute that brings unrest,<br></span>
<span class="i4">The tears gush out!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Yet in that weeping of the spirit Hope wakes and lives;<br></span>
<span class="i4">Ah, Unfettered One!”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="nind">The flute-call of memory bringing restlessness and a strange peace on
its liquid cadences. And a dimness of tears to stir the dust of Hope to
life. “Ah, Unfettered One!” I have included some translations of Indian
songs as sung by native singers, because I thought they might be of
interest from an indigenous point of view. Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy, of
the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., is responsible for their English
rendering. The one commencing “Quietly come, O Beauty, come,” has a
mystical meaning. We drift then into the Punjab, the Land of Five
Waters, and find Puran Singh, the Sikh poet, breathing the musk of
God-love through nostrils ever open to receive a spiritual fragrance.</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“The dew is falling everywhere,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wet is every rose.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The gentle breath of heaven blows.”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="nind">It blows the perfume of the Beauty that is Worship into the heart of
this devout enthusiast. His mind is a casket that holds the most
precious gems of the Sikh religion and ideals, and gives<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_14">{14}</a></span> them forth to
an unenlightened world. Nanak, Gobind, Teg Bahadur, the names of the Ten
Masters (whose lives he has written) sound in his ears day and night.</p>
<p>The loneliness of exile rings through the quivering poems of Manmohan
Ghose.</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“Lost is that country, and all but forgotten<br></span>
<span class="i0">’Mid these chill breezes ...”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="nind">All true poets love trees; Manmohan Ghose is no exception:</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“Willow sweet, willow sad, willow by the river,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Taught by pensive love to droop, where ceaseless waters shiver.”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Mrs. Pankajini Basu is represented by one poem, “Basanta Panchami,” a
description of the famous Spring Festival. One line, in particular,
stands out: “Ever sorrowful, ever ill-starred, are we women of Bengal,
all of us,” and, one might add, ever devout, ever faithful. The eternal
question of Indian womanhood cannot be dismissed with a shrug of the
shoulders. Mrs. Naidu’s lines:</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“What further need hath she of loveliness<br></span>
<span class="i0">Whom Death hath parted from her lord’s caress?”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="nind">seem to strike at the heart of the matter. Time alone will solve a
problem which at the moment is very vexed indeed. It would seem almost
that in their poems these Indian women express all the fullness of their
hearts in love-songs, hymns of conjugal devotion, lamentations, praise
of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_15">{15}</a></span> physical beauty, and tributes of faith. Emotional outlets of warm,
loyal natures, yet always with the underlying sadness that is the
birthright of Hind, like an anthem at evening or the eyes of a convent
sister. Melancholy glides like pearly vapour through “The Island Grave”
of Sri Aurobindo Ghose:</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“And I will meet thee in that lonely place,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Then the grey dawn shall end my hateful days<br></span>
<span class="i0">And death admit me to the silent ways.”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="nind">Death, to the Oriental, is a small and yet a great matter. He welcomes
rather than fears it. The body, being but the shell of the soul, is of
little account, save, perhaps, for its procreative value as a creator of
further beings in the image of God. Death, then, is a joyful thing, and
there is but a thin line between the wedding-song and the funeral dirge.</p>
<p>The blue bird of truth is flying against a sky of such intense blueness
as to be almost indistinguishable—Ananda Acharya’s “blue of Indra.”
This poet sends his “snow-blossoms” of Indian thought forth from the
cool earth of Norway. He lives there amid his “Arctic Swallows,” and in
his later work has grafted Asian feeling, in a curious way, upon a shoot
of Scandinavian origin. There is, of course, a strange affinity between
the Nordic peoples and the Asian. The strain flowed through Northern
Russia, south to Persia, and thence into India,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_16">{16}</a></span> the type gradually
changing from blue-eyed, fair-skinned folk to olive skins and “flaming
eyes, like thunder skies. So deep and dark....”</p>
<p>Jehangir Jivaji Vakil’s three little poems have not hitherto been
published. The one commencing “O long black hair of love” has an almost
Japanese brevity, and compresses into four lines quite a wealth of
ardent feeling.</p>
<p>India is rich in legendary history and does not lack for romantic and
dramatic episodes in her actual chronicles. I have, nevertheless, found
little of the narrative style of poetry among the modern poets.
Historical and legendary references are occasionally met with, but they
are usually incidental, and little use has been made of a
richly-equipped storehouse. Adi K. Sett has utilised this method in
“Roshanara,” Inayat Khan in “Tansen,” and Tagore (in a measure) in
“Urvasi.” Apparently the lyrical style or the sonnet-form has the
greatest appeal.</p>
<p>Narayan Vaman Tilak was a Christian mystic. His poems breathe all the
fervour of the convert.</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“Saith Dasa, Christ, upon Thy pallet-bed<br></span>
<span class="i0">Grant me a little space to lay my head.”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="nind">I have included Zahir, Ghalib, and Amir, because, though not modern in a
strict sense, as is, say, Fredoon Kabraji, they have been translated by
living people, namely, Mrs. J. D. Westbrook and Pir-o-Murshid Inayat
Khan.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_17">{17}</a></span></p>
<p>Whether this is the dawn-time of a new era of Indian poetic thought, who
shall say? These Eastern singers, Bengali, Punjabi, Hindu, Mohammedan,
Sikh, Christian, have upon their shoulders a yoke of heavy
responsibility. They have to support and become worthy of the mighty
tradition that lies behind them. Song should be theirs naturally, but it
is one thing to preserve the metre in their own particular tongues and
another to wrestle with the technicalities of English. There are many
more modern poets in India from whom I might have chosen, but the scope
of the book forbids the inclusion of more material.</p>
<p>The Indian twilight descends, gentle and swift, “wizard clocks ring out
and rend the calm.” The dark rich blue of night, peridot-studded, swings
a baby-moon high above inky palm and gleaming tomb. The poet sits in
contemplation. “The lotus dreams upon the lyric melodies of day....”</p>
<p class="rt">
Gwendoline Goodwin.</p>
<p class="hang">
Sheffield,<br>
<i>December 8th, 1926</i>.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_18">{18}</a></span>  </p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_19">{19}</a></span>  </p>
</div>
<h2><a id="ACKNOWLEDGMENTS"></a>ACKNOWLEDGMENTS</h2>
<p>I beg to acknowledge indebtedness to the following for permissions
accorded to reproduce poems:</p>
<p>1. <i>Oxford University Press</i> (Heritage of India Series). (Poems by
Indian Women.)</p>
<p class="indd">
Professor Farquhar, of Manchester University.<br>
Mrs. Margaret Macnicol, Miss D. Whitehouse.<br>
</p>
<p>2. <i>Messrs. William Heinemann, Ltd.</i></p>
<p class="indd">
Mrs. Sarojini Naidu.<br>
“The Golden Threshold.”<br>
“The Broken Wing.”<br>
“The Bird of Time.”<br>
</p>
<p>3. <i>Blackwell</i> (<i>Oxford</i>)</p>
<p class="indd">
Poems of Manmohan Ghose.<br>
Mr. Laurence Binyon.<br>
</p>
<p>4. “<i>Poetry Review</i>” (<i>Mr. Galloway Kyle</i>)</p>
<p class="indd">
Poems by Mrs. Elsa Kazi.<br>
</p>
<p>5. <i>Longmans, Green & Co.</i></p>
<p class="indd">
Nanikram Vasanmal Thadani.<br>
“Krishna’s Flute”<br>
</p>
<p>6. Adi K. Sett.</p>
<p class="indd">
“Roshanara.”<br>
</p>
<p>7. <i>Srinavasa Varadachari & Co.</i></p>
<p class="indd">
Sonnets.<br>
Prof. P. Seshadri, of Benares Hindu University.<br>
</p>
<p>8. <i>Indian Press, Ltd.</i> (<i>Allahabad</i>)</p>
<p class="indd">
Prof. P. Seshadri.<br>
“Vanished Hours.”<br>
“Champak Leaves.”<br>
</p>
<p>9. <i>The Sufi Movement</i> (<i>Southampton</i>)</p>
<p class="indd">
Inayat Khan and Mrs. Jessie Duncan Westbrook.<br>
“Diwan.”<br>
Hindustani Lyrics.<br>
</p>
<p>10. <i>J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.</i></p>
<p class="indd">
Puran Singh and Bhai Vir Singh.<br>
“Sisters of the Spinning-Wheel.”<br>
“Nargas.”<br>
</p>
<p>11. Jehangir Jivaji Vakil.</p>
<p class="indd">
(Three poems hitherto unpublished.)<br>
</p>
<p>12. <i>Messrs. Ernest Benn, Ltd.</i></p>
<p class="indd">
(Augustan Books of Modern Poetry.)<br>
Poems of Rabindranath Tagore.<br>
Mr. Edward Thompson.<br>
Mr. C. F. Andrews.<br>
</p>
<p>13. <i>Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd.</i></p>
<p class="indd">
“The Secrets of the Self.”<br>
Muhammad Iqbal (Lahore).<br>
Mr. R. A. Nicholson.<br>
Sri Ananda Acharya.<br>
“Book of the Cave” (<i>see Notes</i>).<br>
</p>
<p>14. <i>The Brahmakul Gaurisankar</i> (<i>Alvdal, Norway</i>)</p>
<p class="indd">
Sri Ananda Acharya.<br>
“Saki.”<br>
“Usarika.”<br>
</p>
<p>15. <i>Theosophical Publishing House</i> (<i>Adyar, Madras</i>)</p>
<p class="indd">
Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.<br>
“Feast of Youth.”<br>
</p>
<p><i>Shama’a, Madras</i></p>
<p class="indd">
“Out of the Deep Dark Mould.”<br>
“Magic Tree.”<br>
</p>
<p>16. Fredoon Kabraji.</p>
<p>17. <i>Messrs. Luzac & Co.</i></p>
<p class="indd">
Thirty Indian Songs.<br>
Ananda Coomaraswamy.<br>
</p>
<p>18. <i>Association Press</i> (<i>Calcutta</i>)</p>
<p class="indd">
Poems of Narayan Vaman Tilak.<br>
Mr. D. N. Tilak (Copyright of Marathi originals).<br>
Rev. J. C. Winslow.<br>
</p>
<p>19. Sri Aurobindo Ghose (Pondicherry).</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_22">{22}</a></span></p>
<h2><a id="EDITORIAL_NOTE"></a>EDITORIAL NOTE</h2>
<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> object of the Editors of this series is a very definite one. They
desire above all things that, in their humble way, these books shall be
the ambassadors of good-will and understanding between East and
West—the old world of Thought and the new of Action. In this endeavour,
and in their own sphere, they are but followers of the highest example
in the land. They are confident that a deeper knowledge of the great
ideals and lofty philosophy of Oriental thought may help to a revival of
that true spirit of Charity which neither despises nor fears the nations
of another creed and colour.</p>
<p class="rt">L. CRANMER-BYNG.<br>
S. A. KAPADIA.</p>
<p class="hang">Northbrook Society,<br>
Imperial Institute,<br>
S.W.7.</p>
<p>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_23">{23}</a></span></div></p>
<h2><a id="ANTHOLOGY_OF_MODERN_INDIAN_POETRY"></a>ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN INDIAN POETRY</h2>
<h2><a id="AN_INVOCATION"></a>AN INVOCATION</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">O, Thou art as the soul in the body of the universe,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou art our soul and Thou art ever fleeing from us.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou breathest music into Life’s lute;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Life envies Death when death is for thy sake.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Once more bring comfort to our sad hearts!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Once more dwell in our breasts!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Once more let us hear Thy call to honour!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Strengthen our weak love.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">We are oft complaining of destiny,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou art of great price and we have naught.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Hide not Thy fair face from the empty-handed!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Sell cheap the love of Salman and Bilál!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Give us the sleepless eye and the passionate heart!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Give us again the nature of quicksilver!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Show unto us one of Thy manifest signs,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_24">{24}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">That the necks of our enemies may be bowed!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Make this chaff a mountain crested with fire,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Burn with our fire all that is not God!<br></span>
<span class="i0">When the people let the clue of Unity go from their hands,<br></span>
<span class="i0">They fell into a hundred mazes.<br></span>
<span class="i0">We are dispersed like stars in the world;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Though of the same family, we are strange to one another.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Bind again these scattered leaves,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Revive the law of love!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Take us back to serve Thee as of old,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Commit Thy cause to them that love thee!<br></span>
<span class="i0">We are travellers: give us devotion as our goal!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Give us the strong faith of Abraham!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Make us know the meaning of “There is no god”!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Make us acquainted with the mystery of “except Allah”!<br></span>
<span class="i0">I, who burn like a candle for the sake of others,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Teach myself to weep like the candle.<br></span>
<span class="i0">O God! a tear that is heart-enkindling,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Passionful, wrung forth by pain, peace-consuming,<br></span>
<span class="i0">May I sow in the garden, and may it grow into a fire<br></span>
<span class="i0">That washes away the firebrand from the tulip’s robe!<br></span>
<span class="i0">My heart is with yestereve, my eye is on to-morrow:<br></span>
<span class="i0">Amidst the company I am alone.<br></span>
<span class="ind">“Everyone fancies he is my friend,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_25">{25}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">But my secret thoughts have not escaped from my heart.”<br></span>
<span class="i0">O, where in the wide world is my comrade?<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am the Bush of Sinai: where is my Moses?<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am tyrannous, I have done many a wrong to myself,<br></span>
<span class="i0">I have nourished a flame in my bosom,<br></span>
<span class="i0">A flame that seized the furniture of judgment,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And cast fire on the skirt of discretion,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And lessened with madness the reason,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And burned up the existence of knowledge:<br></span>
<span class="i0">Its blaze enthrones the sun in the sky,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And lightnings encircle it with adoration for ever.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Mine eye fell to weeping, like dew,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Since I was entrusted with that hidden fire.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I taught the candle to burn openly,<br></span>
<span class="i0">While I myself burned unseen by the world’s eye.<br></span>
<span class="i0">At last flames breathed from every hair of me,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Fire dropped from the veins of my thought:<br></span>
<span class="i0">My nightingale picked up the spark-grains<br></span>
<span class="i0">And created a fire-tempered song.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Is the breast of this age without a heart?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Majnún trembles lest Lailá’s howdah be empty.<br></span>
<span class="i0">It is not easy for the candle to throb alone:<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ah! is there no moth worthy of me?<br></span>
<span class="i0">How long shall I wait for one to share my grief?<br></span>
<span class="i0">How long must I search for a confidant?<br></span>
<span class="i0">O Thou whose face lends light to the moon and the stars,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_26">{26}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Withdraw Thy fire from my soul!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Take back what Thou hast put in my breast,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Remove the stabbing radiance from my mirror,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Or give me one old comrade<br></span>
<span class="i0">To be the mirror of mine all-burning love!<br></span>
<span class="i0">In the sea wave tosses side by side with wave:<br></span>
<span class="i0">Each hath a partner in its emotion.<br></span>
<span class="i0">In heaven star consorts with star,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And the bright moon lays her head on the knees of Night.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Morning touches Night’s dark side,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And To-day throws itself against To-morrow.<br></span>
<span class="i0">One river loses its being in another,<br></span>
<span class="i0">A waft of air dies in perfume.<br></span>
<span class="i0">There is dancing in every nook of the wine-house,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Madman dances with madman.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Howbeit in Thine essence Thou art single,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou hast decked out for Thyself a whole world.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am as the tulip of the field,<br></span>
<span class="i0">In the midst of a company I am alone.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I beg of Thy grace a sympathising friend,<br></span>
<span class="i0">An adept in the mysteries of my nature,<br></span>
<span class="i0">A friend endowed with madness and wisdom,<br></span>
<span class="i0">One that knoweth not the phantom of vain things,<br></span>
<span class="i0">That I may confide my lament to his soul<br></span>
<span class="i0">And see again my face in his heart.<br></span>
<span class="i0">His image I will mould of mine own clay,<br></span>
<span class="i0">I will be to him both idol and worshipper.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Muhammad Iqbal.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_27">{27}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="THE_SECRETS_OF_THE_SELF"></a>THE SECRETS OF THE SELF</h2>
<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Prologue</span></p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When the world-illuming sun rushed upon Night like a brigand,<br></span>
<span class="i0">My weeping bedewed the face of the rose,<br></span>
<span class="i0">My tears washed away sleep from the eye of the narcissus,<br></span>
<span class="i0">My passion wakened the grass and made it grow.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The Gardener taught me to sing with power,<br></span>
<span class="i0">He sowed a verse and reaped a sword.<br></span>
<span class="i0">In the soil he planted only the seed of my tears,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wove my lament with the garden, as warp and woof.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Tho’ I am but a mote, the radiant sun is mine:<br></span>
<span class="i0">Within my bosom are a hundred dawns.<br></span>
<span class="i0">My dust is brighter than Jamshid’s cup,<br></span>
<span class="i0">It knows things that are yet unborn in the world.<br></span>
<span class="i0">My thought hunted down and slung from the saddle a deer<br></span>
<span class="i0">That has not yet leaped forth from the covert of non-existence.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Fair is my garden ere yet the leaves are green:<br></span>
<span class="i0">Full-blown roses are hidden in the skirt of my garment.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I struck dumb the musicians where they were gathered together,<br></span>
<span class="i0">I smote the heartstrings of all that heard me,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_28">{28}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Because the lute of my genius hath a rare melody:<br></span>
<span class="i0">Even to comrades my song is strange.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am born in the world as a new sun,<br></span>
<span class="i0">I have not learned the ways and fashions of the sky:<br></span>
<span class="i0">Not yet have the stars fled before my splendour,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Not yet is my quicksilver astir;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Untouched is the sea by my dancing rays,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Untouched are the mountains by my crimson hue.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The eye of existence is not familiar with me;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I rise trembling, afraid to show myself.<br></span>
<span class="i0">From the East my dawn arrived and routed Night,<br></span>
<span class="i0">A fresh dew settled on the rose of the world.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am waiting for the votaries that rise at dawn:<br></span>
<span class="i0">Oh, happy they who shall worship my fire!<br></span>
<span class="i0">I have no need of the ear of To-day,<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am the voice of the poet of To-morrow.<br></span>
<span class="i0">My own age does not understand my deep meanings;<br></span>
<span class="i0">My Joseph is not for this market.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I despair of my old companions,<br></span>
<span class="i0">My Sinai burns for sake of the Moses who is coming.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Their sea is silent, like dew,<br></span>
<span class="i0">But my dew is storm-ridden, like the ocean.<br></span>
<span class="i0">My song is of another world than theirs:<br></span>
<span class="i0">This bell calls other travellers to take the road.<br></span>
<span class="i0">How many a poet after his death<br></span>
<span class="i0">Opened our eyes when his own were closed,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And journeyed forth again from nothingness<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_29">{29}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">When roses blossomed o’er the earth of his grave!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Albeit caravans have passed through this desert,<br></span>
<span class="i0">They passed, as a camel steps, with little sound.<br></span>
<span class="i0">But I am a lover: loud crying is my faith:<br></span>
<span class="i0">The clamour of Judgment Day is one of my minions.<br></span>
<span class="i0">My song exceeds the range of the chord,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Yet I do not fear that my lute will break.<br></span>
<span class="i0">’Twere better for the waterdrop not to know my torrent,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Whose fury should rather madden the sea.<br></span>
<span class="i0">No river will contain my Oman:<br></span>
<span class="i0">My flood requires whole seas to hold it.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Unless the bud expand into a bed of roses,<br></span>
<span class="i0">It is unworthy of my spring-cloud’s bounty.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Lightnings slumber within my soul,<br></span>
<span class="i0">I sweep over mountain and plain.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Wrestle with my sea, if thou art a plain;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Receive my lightning, if thou art a Sinai.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The Fountain of Life hath been given me to drink,<br></span>
<span class="i0">I have been made an adept of the mystery of Life.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The speck of dust was vitalised by my burning song:<br></span>
<span class="i0">It unfolded wings and became a firefly.<br></span>
<span class="i0">No one hath told the secret which I will tell<br></span>
<span class="i0">Or threaded a pearl of thought like mine.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Come, if thou wouldst know the secret of everlasting life!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_30">{30}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Come, if thou wouldst win both earth and heaven!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The old <i>Guru</i> of the Sky taught me this lore,<br></span>
<span class="i0">I cannot hide it from my comrades.<br></span>
<span class="i0">O Saki! arise and pour wine into the cup,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Clear the vexation of Time from my heart!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The sparkling liquor that flows from Zemzem—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Were it a beggar, a king would pay homage to it.<br></span>
<span class="i0">It makes thought more sober and wise,<br></span>
<span class="i0">It makes the keen eye keener,<br></span>
<span class="i0">It gives to a straw the weight of a mountain,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And to foxes the strength of lions.<br></span>
<span class="i0">It causes dust to soar to the Pleiades<br></span>
<span class="i0">And a drop of water swell to the breadth of the sea.<br></span>
<span class="i0">It turns silence into the din of Judgment Day,<br></span>
<span class="i0">It makes the foot of the partridge red with blood of the hawk.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Arise and pour pure wine into my cup,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Pour moonbeams into the dark night of my thought,<br></span>
<span class="i0">That I may lead home the wanderer<br></span>
<span class="i0">And imbue the idle looker-on with restless impatience;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And advance hotly on a new quest<br></span>
<span class="i0">And become known as the champion of a new spirit;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And be to people of insight as the pupil to the eye,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And sink into the ear of the world, like a voice;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And exalt the worth of Poesy<br></span>
<span class="i0">And sprinkle the dry herbs with my tears.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_31">{31}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Inspired by the genius of the Master of Rum,<br></span>
<span class="i0">I rehearse the sealed book of secret lore.<br></span>
<span class="i0">His soul is the source of the flames,<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am but as the spark that gleams for a moment.<br></span>
<span class="i0">His burning candle consumed me, the moth;<br></span>
<span class="i0">His wine overwhelmed my goblet.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The Master of Rum transmuted my earth to gold<br></span>
<span class="i0">And clothed my barren dust with beauty.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The grain of sand set forth from the desert,<br></span>
<span class="i0">That it might win the radiance of the sun.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am a wave, and I will come to rest in his sea,<br></span>
<span class="i0">That I may make the glistening pearl mine own.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I who am drunken with the wine of his song<br></span>
<span class="i0">Will draw life from the breath of his words.<br></span>
<span class="i0">’Twas night: my heart would fain lament,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The silence was filled with my cries to God.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I was complaining of the sorrows of the world<br></span>
<span class="i0">And bewailing the emptiness of my cup.<br></span>
<span class="i0">At last mine eye could endure no more,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Broken with fatigue it went to sleep.<br></span>
<span class="i0">There appeared the Master, formed in the mould of Truth,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Who wrote the Koran of Persia.<br></span>
<span class="i0">He said, “O frenzied lover,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Take a draught of love’s pure wine.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Strike the chords of thine heart and rouse a tumultuous strain,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Dash thine head against the cupping-glass and thine eye against the lancet!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Make thy laughter the source of a hundred sighs,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_32">{32}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Make the hearts of men bleed with thy tears!<br></span>
<span class="i0">How long wilt thou be silent, like a bud?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Sell thy fragrance cheap, like the rose!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Tongue-tied, thou art in pain:<br></span>
<span class="i0">Cast thyself upon the fire, like rue!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Like the bell, break silence at last, and from every limb<br></span>
<span class="i0">Utter forth a lamentation!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou art fire: fill the world with thy glow!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Make others burn with thy burning!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Proclaim the secrets of the old wine-seller;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Be thou a surge of wine, and the crystal cup thy robe!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Shatter the mirror of fear,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Break the bottles in the bazaar!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Like the reed-flute, bring a message from the reeds;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Give to Majnún a message from Lailá!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Create a new style for thy song,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Enrich the feast with thy piercing strains!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Up, and re-inspire every living soul!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Say ‘Arise!’ and by that word quicken the living!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Up, and set thy feet on another path;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Put aside the passionate melancholy of old!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Become familiar with the delight of singing;<br></span>
<span class="i0">O bell of the caravan, awake!”<br></span>
<span class="i0">At these words my bosom was enkindled<br></span>
<span class="i0">And swelled with emotion like the flute;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I rose like music from the string<br></span>
<span class="i0">To prepare a Paradise for the ear.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_33">{33}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">I unveiled the mystery of the Self<br></span>
<span class="i0">And disclosed its wondrous secret.<br></span>
<span class="i0">My being was as an unfinished statue,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Uncomely, worthless, good for nothing.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Love chiselled me: I became a man<br></span>
<span class="i0">And gained knowledge of the nature of the universe.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I have seen the movement of the sinews of the sky,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And the blood coursing in the veins of the moon.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Many a night I wept for Man’s sake<br></span>
<span class="i0">That I might tear the veil from Life’s mysteries,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And extract the secret of Life’s constitution<br></span>
<span class="i0">From the laboratory of phenomena.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I who give beauty to this night, like the moon,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Am as dust in devotion to the pure Faith [Islam]—<br></span>
<span class="i0">A Faith renowned in hill and dale,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Which kindles in men’s hearts a flame of undying song:<br></span>
<span class="i0">It sowed an atom and reaped a sun,<br></span>
<span class="i0">It harvested a hundred poets like Rumi and Attar.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am a sigh: I will mount to the heavens;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am a breath, yet am I sprung of fire.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Driven onward by high thoughts, my pen<br></span>
<span class="i0">Cast abroad the secret of this veil,<br></span>
<span class="i0">That the drop may become co-equal with the sea<br></span>
<span class="i0">And the grain of sand grow into a Sahara.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Poetising is not the aim of this <i>masnavi</i>,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Beauty-worshipping and love-making is not its aim.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am of India: Persian is not my native tongue;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_34">{34}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">I am like the crescent moon: my cup is not full.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Do not seek from me charm of style in exposition,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Do not seek from me Khansar and Isfahan.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Although the language of Hind is sweet as sugar,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Yet sweeter is the fashion of Persian speech.<br></span>
<span class="i0">My mind was enchanted by its loveliness,<br></span>
<span class="i0">My pen became as a twig of the Burning Bush.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Because of the loftiness of my thoughts,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Persian alone is suitable to them.<br></span>
<span class="i0">O Reader, do not find fault with the wine-cup,<br></span>
<span class="i0">But consider attentively the taste of the wine.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Muhammad Iqbal.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="WORSHIP"></a>WORSHIP</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">You flood my music with your autumn silence<br></span>
<span class="i0">And burn me in the flame-burst of your spring.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Lo! through my beggar-being’s tattered garments<br></span>
<span class="i0">Resplendent shines your crystal heart, my King!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Like a rich song you chant your red-fire sunrise,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Deep in my dreams, and forge your white-flame moon ...<br></span>
<span class="i0">You hide the crimson secret of your sunset,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And the pure golden message of your moon.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">You fashion cool-grey clouds within my body,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And weave your rain into a diamond mesh.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The Universal Beauty dances, dances<br></span>
<span class="i0">A glimmering peacock in my flowering flesh!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_35">{35}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="BEYOND_THE_VERGE_OF_TIME"></a>BEYOND THE VERGE OF TIME</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Our dreams and longings cover deeper dreams<br></span>
<span class="i0">And longings in the silence far away.<br></span>
<span class="i0">All things on earth, sweet winds and shining clouds,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Waters and stars and the lone moods of men,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Are cool green echoes of the voice that sings<br></span>
<span class="i0">Beyond the verge of Time. Between two cries of aught,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of aught on earth, wakes the eternal fire<br></span>
<span class="i0">Wherein the destiny of heaven is wrought,<br></span>
<span class="i0">For what is heaven but the earth grown full,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And God but man unshadowed and afar?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="STEPS"></a>STEPS</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Each moment when we feel alone<br></span>
<span class="i0">In this great world of rush and riot<br></span>
<span class="i0">Is as a jewelled stepping-stone<br></span>
<span class="i0">Which leads into the House of Quiet.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Within it dwell the ancient seers<br></span>
<span class="i0">Beyond unreal griefs and cares,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Beyond unreal smiles and tears,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Beyond the need of chant and prayers.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_36">{36}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="EGO"></a>EGO</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A Beauty that ever eludes these fleshly eyes<br></span>
<span class="i0">And fingers and lips ...<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ere I can catch one gleam of the starry skies<br></span>
<span class="i0">The mystery slips,<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Leaving an empty, desolate, mocking moan<br></span>
<span class="i0">In the little heart that greedily sought to hold<br></span>
<span class="i0">Vast beauty within its shadowy grasp and own<br></span>
<span class="i0">Elusive, starry gold!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Who are you, feeble, shadow-robed elf,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Striving again and again in vain to capture<br></span>
<span class="i0">Wealth of the deep, the shining, ineffable rapture<br></span>
<span class="i0">Which is the Self beyond self?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="FIRE"></a>FIRE</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Kindle your glimmering lamp in the infinite space, O Love!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Let the dark shadows dance in the burning depths of mine eyes.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am athirst for one glimpse of your beautiful face, O Love!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Veiled in the mystical silence of stars and the purple of skies.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_37">{37}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Thrill me with radiant rapture, O Love! of your ravishing flute,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Folding my silence in song, and my sorrow in silver eclipse,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Shaping my heart into flower, and the flower of my heart into fruit<br></span>
<span class="i0">Meet for your orchards of light, and touch of your luminous lips.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Cast in the shadowy deeps of my being, your love, like a spark,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Fan it to magical flame, till my dead heart burst into fire,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Swing like a censer, my dream of devotion, O Love! through the dark,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Turn into tumults of incense my richly-pulsating desire!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="THE_ARTIST"></a>THE ARTIST</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The selfsame radiant ecstasy<br></span>
<span class="i0">Which wrought the tempest’s giant wrath<br></span>
<span class="i0">Has painted gorgeous dream-designs<br></span>
<span class="i0">So delicately on the moth.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The selfsame luminous agony<br></span>
<span class="i0">Which shaped the lightning’s fiery claw<br></span>
<span class="i0">Has carved in utmost tenderness<br></span>
<span class="i0">A summer flower without a flaw.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_38">{38}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The selfsame motherhood which made<br></span>
<span class="i0">The awful mystery of death<br></span>
<span class="i0">Has built the body of a child<br></span>
<span class="i0">And lit its limbs with golden breath.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The selfsame miracle which moves<br></span>
<span class="i0">In silent mystery apart<br></span>
<span class="i0">Has struck the secret melody<br></span>
<span class="i0">Which dances shyly in my heart.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="IMAGERY"></a>IMAGERY</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">He has fashioned the stars and the moons to the music<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of innermost-flowering joy and desire,<br></span>
<span class="i0">He has tried his own love for himself through the ages<br></span>
<span class="i0">By flooding his limbs with unquenchable fire<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of creation that dances and bubbles and flutters<br></span>
<span class="i0">In peacocks, in seas, and the hearts of the birds.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Behind the rich silence of red-running sunsets<br></span>
<span class="i0">And cool-coloured sundawns he utters his words.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">He is finding for ever his infinite fullness<br></span>
<span class="i0">In blossoming buds and the withering flowers.<br></span>
<span class="i0">He shapes through the heart of the world his Ideal<br></span>
<span class="i0">So white in the midst of the many-hued hours.<br></span>
<span class="i0">He weaves a fine trammel of marvellous colours<br></span>
<span class="i0">Around and about him in utter delight,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_39">{39}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Till straight through the darkness his laughter comes lambent,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Birdlike from a cage in a freedom of flight.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="I"></a>I<br><br>
TRANSIENCE</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Forgive this wrong:<br></span>
<span class="i0">That of your beauty I have made<br></span>
<span class="i0">Only a passing song,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Only a white-flower song that will fade<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ere I have time to lay it beneath<br></span>
<span class="i0">The shapèd beauty of your feet.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Jehangir Jivaji Vakil.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="II"></a>II<br><br>
O LONG BLACK HAIR</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">O long black hair of love,<br></span>
<span class="i0">In your dark shades a dove,<br></span>
<span class="i0">My heart, circles in rings,<br></span>
<span class="i4">Beating white wings.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Jehangir Jivaji Vakil.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="REVELATION"></a>REVELATION</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">O, I have dreamt on many rain-dim eves<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of Beauty folded in the flowers and leaves,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Spraying the grass with laughter as with light<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of shaken pearls that lit her hair’s dark night;<br></span>
<span class="i0">But never dreamed her eyes so deep might be<br></span>
<span class="i0">As those with which last eve you gazed at me.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Jehangir Jivaji Vakil.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_40">{40}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="SPRING_THAT_IN_MY_COURTYARD"></a>SPRING THAT IN MY COURTYARD</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Spring that in my courtyard used to make<br></span>
<span class="i0">Such riot once, and buzzing laughter lift,<br></span>
<span class="i0">With heaped drift—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Pomegranate-flowers,<br></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Kanchan</i>, <i>parul</i>, rain of <i>palas</i>-showers;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Spring whose new twigs stirred the woods awake,<br></span>
<span class="i0">With rosy kisses maddening all the sky,<a id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br></span>
<span class="i0">Seeks me out to-day with soundless feet,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Where I sit alone. Her steadfast gaze<br></span>
<span class="i0">Goes out to where the fields and heavens meet;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Beside my silent cottage, silently<br></span>
<span class="i0">She looks and sees the greenness swoon and die<br></span>
<span class="i0">Into the azure haze.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Rabindranath Tagore.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="THIS_DAY_WILL_PASS"></a>THIS DAY WILL PASS</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I know this day will pass,<br></span>
<span class="i6">This day will pass—<a id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a><br></span>
<span class="i0">That one day, some day,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The dim sun with tender smiling<br></span>
<span class="i0">Will look in my face,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Looking his last farewell.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Beside the way the flute will sound,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_41">{41}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">The kine will graze on the river-bank,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The children will play in the courtyards,<br></span>
<span class="i6">The birds will sing on.<br></span>
<span class="i2">Yet this day will pass,<br></span>
<span class="i6">This day will pass.<br></span>
<span class="i0">This is my prayer,<br></span>
<span class="i6">My prayer to Thee:<br></span>
<span class="i2">That ere I go I may learn<br></span>
<span class="i2">Why the green Earth,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Lifting her eyes to the sky,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Called me to her;<br></span>
<span class="i2">Why the silence of the Night<br></span>
<span class="i2">Told me of the stars,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Why the Day’s glory<br></span>
<span class="i6">Raised waves in my soul.<br></span>
<span class="i2">This is my prayer to Thee.<br></span>
<span class="i0">When Earth’s revolutions<br></span>
<span class="i6">For me are ended,<br></span>
<span class="i2">In the finishing of my song<br></span>
<span class="i2">Let me pause a moment,<br></span>
<span class="i2">That I may fill my basket<br></span>
<span class="i6">With the flowers and fruits of the Six Seasons;<a id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a><br></span>
<span class="i2">That in the light of this life<br></span>
<span class="i2">I may see Thee in going,<br></span>
<span class="i2">That I may garland Thee in going<br></span>
<span class="i6">With the garland from my own throat—<br></span>
<span class="i2">When Earth’s revolutions for me are ended.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Rabindranath Tagore.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_42">{42}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="URVASI4"></a><i>URVASI</i><a id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Thou art not Mother, art not Daughter, art not Bride!<br></span>
<span class="i6">Thou beautiful, comely One,<br></span>
<span class="i6">O Dweller in Paradise, Urvasi!<br></span>
<span class="i0">When Evening descends on the pastures, drawing about her tired body her golden cloth,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou lightest the evening lamp within no home.<br></span>
<span class="i0">With hesitant, wavering steps, with throbbing breast and downcast look,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou dost not go, smiling, fearful, to any belovèd’s bed,<br></span>
<span class="i6">In the hushed midnight.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Like the rising Dawn, thou art unveiled,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Unshrinking One!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_43">{43}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Like some stemless flower, blooming in thyself,<br></span>
<span class="i6">When didst thou blossom, Urvasi?<br></span>
<span class="i0">That primal Spring, thou didst arise from the churning of Ocean,<a id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a><br></span>
<span class="i0">In thy right hand nectar, venom in thy left.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The swelling, mighty Sea, like a serpent tamed with spells,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Drooping his thousand, towering hoods,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Fell at thy feet!<br></span>
<span class="i0">White as the <i>kunda</i><a id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> blossom, a naked beauty, adored by the King of Gods,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Thou flawless One!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Wast thou never bud, never maiden of tender years,<br></span>
<span class="i6">O eternally youthful Urvasi?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Sitting alone, under whose dark roof<br></span>
<span class="i0">Didst thou know childhood’s play, toying with gems and pearls?<br></span>
<span class="i0">At whose side, in some chamber lit with the flashing of gems,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Lulled by the chant of the sea-waves, didst thou sleep, in coral bed,<br></span>
<span class="i6">A smile on thy pure face?<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_44">{44}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">That moment when thou awakedst into the universe, thou wast framed of youth,<br></span>
<span class="i6">In full-blown beauty!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">From age to age thou hast been the world’s beloved,<br></span>
<span class="i6">O unsurpassed in loveliness, Urvasi!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Breaking their meditation, sages lay at thy feet the fruits of their penance;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Smitten with thy glance, the three worlds<a id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> grow restless with youth;<br></span>
<span class="i0">The blinded winds blow thine intoxicating fragrance around;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Like the black bee, honey-drunken, the infatuated poet wonders, with greedy heart,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Lifting chants of wild jubilation!<br></span>
<span class="i0">While thou ... thou goest with jingling anklets and waving skirts,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Restless as lightning!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In the assembly of Gods, when thou dancest in ecstasy of joy,<br></span>
<span class="i6">O swaying Wave, Urvasi!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The companies of billows in mid-ocean swell and dance, beat on beat;<br></span>
<span class="i0">In the crests of the corn the skirts of Earth tremble;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_45">{45}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">From thy necklace stars fall off, in the sky;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Suddenly in the breast of man the heart forgets itself,<br></span>
<span class="i6">The blood dances!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Suddenly in the horizon thy zone bursts,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Ah, wild in abandon!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">On the Sunrise Mount of Heaven thou art the embodied Dawn,<br></span>
<span class="i6">O world-enchanting Urvasi!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The slimness of thy form is washed with the tears of the Universe;<br></span>
<span class="i0">The ruddy hue of thy feet is painted with the heart’s blood of the three worlds;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thy tresses disrobed from their braid, thou hast placed thy light feet,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thy lotus-feet, on the lotus of the blossomed<br></span>
<span class="i6">Desires of the universe!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Endless are thy masques in the mind’s heaven,<br></span>
<span class="i6">O Comrade of dreams!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Ah, hear what crying and weeping everywhere rises for thee,<br></span>
<span class="i6">O cruel, deaf Urvasi!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ah, will that Ancient Prime ever revisit this earth?<br></span>
<span class="i0">From the shoreless, unfathomed deep wilt thou ever rise again, with wet locks?<br></span>
<span class="i0">First in the First Dawn that Form will show!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_46">{46}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">In the startled gaze of the universe all thy limbs will weep,<br></span>
<span class="i6">The waters flowing from them!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Suddenly the vast Sea, in songs never heard before,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Will thunder with its waves!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She will not return, she will not return! That Moon of Glory has set,<br></span>
<span class="i6">She has made her home on the Mount of Setting,<a id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> has Urvasi!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Therefore to-day, on earth, with the joyous breath of Spring<br></span>
<span class="i0">Mingles the long-drawn sigh of some eternal separation!<br></span>
<span class="i0">On the night of full moon, when the world brims with laughter,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Memory, from somewhere far away, pipes a flute that brings unrest,<br></span>
<span class="i6">The tears gush out!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Yet in that weeping of the spirit Hope wakes and lives;<br></span>
<span class="i6">Ah, Unfettered One!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Rabindranath Tagore.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_47">{47}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="OPEN_THOU_THY_DOOR_OF_MERCY"></a>OPEN THOU THY DOOR OF MERCY</h2>
<p>All my guilt of old, sin upon sin, put far, far away. Give, O Lord, give
in my heart the melody of a new song.</p>
<p>To stir to life my withered, unfeeling heart, near to death and poor,
play thy melody on the <i>bīnā</i>, taking ever a new tune.</p>
<p>As in Nature thy sweetness overflows, so let thy compassion wake in my
heart.</p>
<p>In the midst of all things may thy loving face float before my eyes. May
no rebel thought against thy wish ever wake in my heart.</p>
<p>Day by day, before I set foot in life’s forest, may I crave thy blessing
and so advance, my Lord.</p>
<p>Setting thy commands upon my head, may I with unfaltering care
accomplish my every task in the remembrance of thy feet.</p>
<p>Giving to thee the fruit of my task fulfilled, at the end of day may my
wearied spirit and body find rest.</p>
<p>Hurrying have I come from far away, knowing thee compassionate. A
hundred hindrances there were to my coming. How many thorns fill the
path to my goal. So, to-day, behold! my heart is wounded, my life is
dark. Hurrying have I come from far away, knowing thee compassionate.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_48">{48}</a></span></p>
<p>Open thou thy door of mercy. My raft of life drifts on the boundless
ocean. Fearlessness art thou, and ever powerful. Nought have I, I am
weak and poor. My heart is thirsting for thy lotus feet. The day is now
far spent. Open thou thy door of mercy. My raft of life drifts on the
boundless ocean.<a id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>Hemantabālā Dutt.</i><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Tr. Miss Whitehouse.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="THE_DANCER"></a>THE DANCER</h2>
<p>Lo! the heavy rain has come! With loosened tresses densely dark, lo! the
sky is covered. Lightnings rend the thick darkness over the mountains.
All around, to my heart’s content, I see that beauty has burst forth.</p>
<p>See, frolicsome, she pours forth her loveliness in a thousand streams!
Her raiment, hastily flung around her in disarray, mad passion in her
eyes, with the voice of the <i>pāpiyā</i>, full of sweetness and pity, she
sings.</p>
<p>Slowly move her feet. Slipping, slipping, falls her loosely hanging
scarf. Her heart throbs with tumultuous feeling. As if a flood of beauty
overflows, her green jacket of emerald grass displays the hue of her
radiant beauty all around.</p>
<p>The anklets on her feet, keeping time, ring out<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_49">{49}</a></span> in swift succession, as
if they were sweet cymbals. Round her lovely throat hangs her chain of
emerald parrots. The rain has ceased and she garbs herself in silken
robes broidered with diamond raindrops.</p>
<p>She gladdens the eye. On the treetops birds play on golden tambourines.
Is the dancer dancing in Indra’s hall, casting restless glances here and
there? Urbasī<a id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> puts off the chain of jewels from her breast.</p>
<p>How gay her laughter! How fair a dance her tinkling footsteps weave! Her
bracelets and bangles circle glittering. She is girdled with melody of
murmuring swans. For her earth and sky swoon away, overflowing with
love.</p>
<p>Her hands touched the <i>bīnā</i><a id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> and by her spell enthralled my
infatuated heart. Tears stream from my eyes; infatuation floods my
heart. The witch to-day has melted my timid heart. Lo! the heavy rain
has come.</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Nirupamā Debī.</i><br></span>
<span class="i15">Tr. Miss Whitehouse.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="ACKNOWLEDGMENT"></a>ACKNOWLEDGMENT</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Thee among all men do I honour;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thee among all men do I know.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Lo! in the beauty of all thee do I see.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_50">{50}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In the mouth of all I have heard, I have heard<br></span>
<span class="i0">The sweet voice of thy lips.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Thee this time I have sought and found;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thee amongst all do I worship;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Lo! I for all have given my life.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">To the work of all amongst all<br></span>
<span class="i0">I have devoted my heart.<a id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Nirupamā Debī.</i><br></span>
<span class="i15">Tr. Miss Whitehouse.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="REMEMBRANCE"></a>REMEMBRANCE</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">To-day I shall not indulge in lovers’ quarrels.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I shall not open the ledger and calculate debit and credit.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Only, once again, I shall fill my heart with remembrance of thee.<a id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Priyambadā Debī.</i><br></span>
<span class="i15">Tr. Miss Whitehouse.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="THE_VISIBLE"></a>THE VISIBLE</h2>
<p>Dearest, I know that thy body is but transitory; that the kindled life,
thy shining eyes, shall be quenched by the touch of death, I know;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_51">{51}</a></span> that
this thy body, the meeting-place of all beauty, in seeing which I count
my life well-lived, shall become but a heap of bones, I know. Yet I love
thy body. Day by day afresh through it have I satisfied a woman’s love
and desire by serving thy feet and worshipping thee. On days of good
omen I have decked thee with a flower-garland; on days of woe I have
wiped away with my <i>sārī</i> end thy tears of grief. O my lord, I know that
thy soul is with the Everlasting One, yet waking suddenly some nights I
have wept in loneliness, thinking how thou didst drive away my fear,
clasping me to thy breast. And so I count thy body as the chief goal of
my love, as very heaven.<a id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Priyambadā Debī.</i><br></span>
<span class="i15">Tr. Miss Whitehouse.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="IN_THE_LIGHT"></a>IN THE LIGHT</h2>
<p>We are indeed children of Light. What an endless mart goes on in the
Light! In the Light is our sleeping and waking, the play of our life and
death.</p>
<p>Beneath one great canopy, in the ray of one great sun, slowly, very
slowly, burn the unnumbered lamps of life.</p>
<p>In the midst of this unending Light I lose<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_52">{52}</a></span> myself; amidst this
intolerable radiance I wander like one blind.</p>
<p>We are indeed children of Light. Why then do we fear when we see the
Light? Come, let us look all around and see, here no man hath cause for
any fear.</p>
<p>In this boundless ocean of Light, if a tiny lamp goes out, let it go;
who can say that it will not burn again?</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Mrs. Kāminī Roy.</i><br></span>
<span class="i15">Tr. Miss Whitehouse.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="CALL_AND_BRING_HER"></a>CALL AND BRING HER</h2>
<p>She went on the wrong way; she has come back again; afar off she stands,
her head bowed down with shame and fear; she does not step forward, she
cannot raise her eyes—go near, take her hand, call her and bring her.</p>
<p>To-day turn not your face away in silent reproach; to-day let eyes and
words be filled with the nectar of love. What good will come from
pouring scorn on the past? Think of her dark future, take her by the
hand and bring her.</p>
<p>Lest for lack of love this shamed soul fling away repentance, bring her,
call and bring her. She has come to give herself up; bind her fast with
loving arms; if she goes to-day, what if she never comes again?</p>
<p>By one day’s neglect, one day’s contempt and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_53">{53}</a></span> anger, you will lose a
life for ever. Do you not purpose to give life? Neglect is a poisoned
arrow; with sorrowing pardon bring her, call and bring her.</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Mrs. Kāminī Roy.</i><br></span>
<span class="i15">Tr. Miss Whitehouse.<br></span>
</div></div></div>
<h2><a id="BASANTA_PANCHAMI15"></a>BASANTA PANCHAMI<a id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></h2>
<p>To-day, after a year, on the sacred fifth day, Nature has flung away her
worn raiment, and with new jewels, see, with fresh buds and new shoots
she has begemmed herself and smiles. The birds wing their way, singing
with joy; ah, how lovely! The black bee hums as if with sound of “Ulu!
ulu!” he wished good fortune to Nature. The south breeze seems to say as
it flits from house to house, “To-day Bīnāpāni<a id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> comes here to
Bengal.” Arrayed in guise that would enrapture even sages, maid Nature
has come to worship thy feet, O propitious one! See, O India, at this
time all pay no heed to fear of plague, famine, earthquake; all put away
pain and grief and gloom; to-day all are drunk with pleasure. For a year
Nature was waiting in hope for this day to come. Many folk in many a
fashion now summon thee, O white-armed one;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_54">{54}</a></span> I also have a mind to
worship. Thy two feet are red lotuses; but, say, with what gift shall we
worship thee, O mother Bīnāpāni? Ever sorrowful, ever ill-starred are we
women of Bengal, all of us. Yet if thou have mercy, this utterly
dependent one will worship thee with the gift of a single tear of
devotion shed on thy lotus feet. Graciously accept that, and in mercy, O
white-armed one, grant this blessing on my head on this propitious,
sacred day, that this life may be spent in thy worship, Mother.</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Pankajinī Basu.</i><br></span>
<span class="i15">Tr. Miss Whitehouse.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="A_WOMANS_BEAUTY"></a>A WOMAN’S BEAUTY</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Round the black eyes are eyebrows looking like a bow,<br></span>
<span class="i0">They are not frightened at all, and they shoot their arrows with certainty.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Seeing the precious ear-rings with pearls and beautiful settings,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Even the moon with all the stars is filled with shame.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I cannot describe the beauty of the lips, cheeks, teeth, and nose,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Even Śesh Nāg,<a id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> seeing the beautiful hair, sighs deeply.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Śrī Sarasvatī Devī.</i><br></span>
<span class="i15">Tr. Mrs. Keay.<br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_55">{55}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="AN_EVENING_ON_THE_LAGOON"></a>AN EVENING ON THE LAGOON</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Withdrawn in silence from the raging sea,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Behind the dark and waving grove of palm<br></span>
<span class="i2">In glorious solitude at even calm<br></span>
<span class="i0">We glide at water’s edge, towards the lea<br></span>
<span class="i0">Away from busy haunts; Eternity<br></span>
<span class="i2">And Love, the burden of our rapturous psalm,<br></span>
<span class="i2">As ’neath the star-lit heaven we breathe the balm<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of Nature’s stillness, lulling you and me<br></span>
<span class="i0">To dream in soft ethereal realms of bliss<br></span>
<span class="i2">Where flits no darkening shadow, dwells no care<br></span>
<span class="i4">And all is sweetness and ecstatic light,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The plighted faith renewed with every kiss<br></span>
<span class="i2">Of fervent gratitude for all our share<br></span>
<span class="i4">Of blessed weal in life, by day and night.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>P. Seshadri.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="AT_THE_TEMPLE"></a>AT THE TEMPLE</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Three little girls were on the temple-stair<br></span>
<span class="i2">Waiting for worship at the inner shrine;<br></span>
<span class="i2">Their tiny hands betrayed a hidden sign<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of weariness, devoid of strength to bear<br></span>
<span class="i0">Their wealth of luscious fruit and offerings rare—<br></span>
<span class="i2">But still they stood. “What shall the Gods assign<br></span>
<span class="i2">To crown your lives?” I asked, “what blessings fine<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_56">{56}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Will cheer with happiness your faces fair?”<br></span>
<span class="ind">“A mass of glittering jewels,” said one child,<br></span>
<span class="i2">“Bracelet and necklace, shining gold waistband<br></span>
<span class="i2">And pearl ear-drop.” “Fine robes of richest lace<br></span>
<span class="i0">And gayest foam-spun silk,” another willed.<br></span>
<span class="i2">The third, with head bent down and trembling hand,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Whispered, “A lovely partner on life’s ways.”<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>P. Seshadri.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="RAKSHA_BANDHAN"></a>RAKSHA BANDHAN</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A piece of silken tassel tipped with gold,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Tied round the hand by loving sister’s hands,<br></span>
<span class="i2">A sacred day in <i>Sravan</i>, when the lands<br></span>
<span class="i0">Are bathed in welcome rain, is said to hold<br></span>
<span class="i0">A potent charm for good. From days of old<br></span>
<span class="i2">This pretty faith has come and happy bands<br></span>
<span class="i2">Of brothers still pay heed to its commands<br></span>
<span class="i0">One day each year. Who will be rashly bold<br></span>
<span class="i0">And flout this festival as void of worth—<br></span>
<span class="i2">An ancient mummery—to which man shows<br></span>
<span class="i2">His slavish piety? Let him, who knows<br></span>
<span class="i4">Of beings more devoted than the fair,<br></span>
<span class="i4">Of wishes purer than a sister’s care,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And stronger powers than woman’s love on earth.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>P. Seshadri.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_57">{57}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="LONGINGS"></a>LONGINGS</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Were I a mighty Master swaying Art<br></span>
<span class="i2">In all her lovely forms surpassing fair<br></span>
<span class="i2">And robed in magic mystery, aware<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of cunning artist-craft, a mind and heart<br></span>
<span class="i0">Aglow with Beauty’s sacred spark, a part<br></span>
<span class="i2">Of God’s creative light! If I could share<br></span>
<span class="i2">The gift of breathing life-infusing air<br></span>
<span class="i0">In canvas, draw thy rapturous sweetness, start<br></span>
<span class="i0">The portrait beaming, bright in loveliness;<br></span>
<span class="i2">The sculptor’s skill—to shape thy limbs divine<br></span>
<span class="i4">In living marble, show thy beauty’s prime!<br></span>
<span class="i4">Shall I encrowned with laurel, sing for Time,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Eternity, and Universe, enshrine<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thy name for ages, scorning storm and stress?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>P. Seshadri.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="THOUGHTS"></a>THOUGHTS</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When midnight hours know not the peace of sleep<br></span>
<span class="i2">But drudge in trembling hope for envied fame,<br></span>
<span class="i2">In ghostly solitude before a flame<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of glimmering light, whose sombre rays out-peep<br></span>
<span class="i0">To view the city wrapped in silence deep,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Midst weird and darkly waving groves of palm;<br></span>
<span class="i2">When wizard clocks ring out and rend the calm<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_58">{58}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">With strides of Time—their thrilling voices creep<br></span>
<span class="i0">Along the soul; my mind with labour worn,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Or grappling with a knot, delights to stand<br></span>
<span class="i4">In stillness, yearning forth to clasp with love<br></span>
<span class="i4">Thy beauteous form—and then, Spring opes above!<br></span>
<span class="i2">With blossom’d flow’r and chirping bird, the land<br></span>
<span class="i0">Smiles ’neath the sunlit hues the heavens adorn!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>P. Seshadri.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="THE_LOVERS"></a>THE LOVERS</h2>
<p>From the rose-gardens of Time, fragrant and fresh, in ecstasies of
light—Day has come! How many an age of silent love hath breathed and
breathed upon his cheeks that tender flush of rose?</p>
<p>The blue in his eyes—from what lakes of enchantment hath he drunk? The
radiant colours of his thought—from what infinite wonder hath he made?
The glory of his love for whom, for whom hath he brought? For whom, for
whom the music of his clouds, his winds, his birds? The secrets of his
soul for whom, for whom?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A Lotus-bud has opened; ere she was born the pain of a vast music did
fill and fill her soul with a vain constant hope; in the ecstasy of that
pain she bloomed into flower.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_59">{59}</a></span></p>
<p>The Lotus dreams upon the lyric melodies of Day.</p>
<p>In the sunset hush of evening she folds her petals upon the memories of
Day, enwoven with her fragrant devotions.</p>
<p>In the secrecy of Night she sings her praise, making the deeps of the
dark melodious.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The glory of his love for whom, for whom doth he bring? For whom, for
whom the music of his clouds, his winds, his birds?</p>
<p>The secrets of his soul for whom, for whom?</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>Fredoon Kabraji.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="A_BLUE_DREAM"></a>A BLUE DREAM</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i8">Where her two lips<br></span>
<span class="i6">Meet or part,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Leaps all my heart<br></span>
<span class="i8">Like the swift ship’s<br></span>
<span class="i6">Lurch on the lucent wave—<br></span>
<span class="i6">Past peril and the grave!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i6">Where her two eyes open or close<br></span>
<span class="i6">Upon the rose-kissed snows<br></span>
<span class="i8">Of her face,<br></span>
<span class="i6">From my soul doth rise<br></span>
<span class="i6">Of its grace<br></span>
<span class="i6">A white star in their skies!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i8">But if she smile ...<br></span>
<span class="i6">Or weave of her mouth a word,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_60">{60}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i6">Swiftly a light steals<br></span>
<span class="i8">Half my mind, while<br></span>
<span class="i6">Her word falls all unheard!<br></span>
<span class="i6">And a blue mist reels<br></span>
<span class="i6">Half curtaining my mind,<br></span>
<span class="i6">As a blue dream reels<br></span>
<span class="i6">In the heart of the blind:<br></span>
<span class="i6">Circling a remembrance<br></span>
<span class="i6">Of meadows and streams,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of blossoms that open and lights that dance,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And passions that struggle to live in dreams!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Fredoon Kabraji.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="TULIP"></a>TULIP</h2>
<p>Tulip, tell me, what do you hold in your cup?</p>
<p>I hold in my cup the magic that swells the thirst of your soul, O
Mother, when you look on the form of your child; the opiate that fills
your dream, Mother, with the awe of the Unknown!</p>
<p>But, Tulip, tell me, why do you guard your magic beyond the wing of
melody?</p>
<p>Because, ere Thought was, a kiss of Love did capture Death in the Seed
of Life. That is why no melody of Life can hold all the magic in my cup,
Mother; that is why Love cannot hold your child in Life alone!</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>Fredoon Kabraji.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_61">{61}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="RETURN_TO_KHAIRPUR"></a>RETURN TO KHAIRPUR</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Thy greens grow pearls, thy sunsets roses fair;<br></span>
<span class="i0">My wandering heart returned to stay with thee,<br></span>
<span class="i0">In shades of eve, to breathe thy cooler air,<br></span>
<span class="i0">That brings refreshment, promised long to me.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I love thy water-wheels, that sing to sleep<br></span>
<span class="i0">The playful twilight, Autumn’s moody child,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The flames that from thy fields and pinfolds leap<br></span>
<span class="i0">Like lights that lead the hearts by Pan beguiled.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I love thy country maids with water-jars<br></span>
<span class="i0">Whose graceful coveys rural charms enhance.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I love thy palms that gaze at distant stars,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And upward draw the earth-encumbered glance.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I love thy lake with silver trailing flowers,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Whose wavelets fondly hold the starry skies;<br></span>
<span class="i0">The moon, entranced by calm of midnight hours,<br></span>
<span class="i0">In violet bed on lily-petals lies.<br></span>
<span class="i0">No more the eyes of homesick longings pine<br></span>
<span class="i0">To watch the sphere remote where stars abound,<br></span>
<span class="i0">But, like thy lake that holds its love divine,<br></span>
<span class="i0">My heart within hath longed-for heaven found.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Elsa Kazi.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="INDIA_ENTERTAINING_TWILIGHT"></a>INDIA—ENTERTAINING TWILIGHT</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">To India’s comely cottage Twilight hied:<br></span>
<span class="ind">“Salam, my lass!” resplendent Twilight cried:<br></span>
<span class="ind">“A sumptuous fare prepare! ... since noon I tried<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_62">{62}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">To come this way ... but ah! the glowing day did stay<br></span>
<span class="i0">With thee!... Fresh milk and fried chapatis bring;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Do not forget thy hubble-bubble, dear,<br></span>
<span class="i0">For lots of dreamy cheer!<br></span>
<span class="i0">From out thy hair the withered lily fling;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Don fine array, with pearls thy tresses lay, and play<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thy vīnā, dance and sing!<br></span>
<span class="i0">One stolen hour is mine; that little while<br></span>
<span class="i0">With haunting notes of <i>suri-raag</i> beguile ...<br></span>
<span class="i0">And let me see thy flaming eyes, as thunder skies<br></span>
<span class="i0">So deep and dark, with mystic lightnings bright;<br></span>
<span class="i0">With ‘Duhals’ wake what slumbering lies, the past let rise<br></span>
<span class="i0">All yesterdays to pageant gay, invite ...<br></span>
<span class="i0">Be swift, my sweet!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The meat and chutney let us eat ...<br></span>
<span class="i0">The hour, my sweet,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Is fleet; from night I must retreat!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Already muezzin’s mellow call resounds in mango grove;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And temple bells, that wake the gods, the hearts to worship move;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Come hither, dear!... The moments flee!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Salam, my love,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Salam!”<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And India, sun-burnt India, sweetly blushed;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_63">{63}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="ind">“Salam! I’ll hasten!” answered she; and brushed<br></span>
<span class="i0">From off her braid the faded lily—crushed<br></span>
<span class="i0">By day’s embrace; she sped, with joy, her face a-blaze,<br></span>
<span class="i0">To milk the goats, to fry the cakes in ghee;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Cabob, pullau, the dates and honey brought<br></span>
<span class="i0">And hubble-bubble sought<br></span>
<span class="i0">With smiles of Sindian hospitality.<br></span>
<span class="i0">With peri-grace she soared about the place, to trace<br></span>
<span class="i0">Each thing that added glee<br></span>
<span class="i0">To Twilight’s hour ... a rich repast she spread<br></span>
<span class="i0">Before her guest, who sliced the mangoes red<br></span>
<span class="i0">’Neath palms, beside the well and stream ... his eyes a-gleam<br></span>
<span class="i0">With dusk, he watched where night in forests hid<br></span>
<span class="i0">And vexed with prying silver beam his crimson dream,<br></span>
<span class="i0">While India, humming low, her braids undid.<br></span>
<span class="i0">With rustling sound<br></span>
<span class="i0">Unbound, her tresses sought the ground;<br></span>
<span class="i0">With silvery sound<br></span>
<span class="i0">She wound her pearls in orient found ...<br></span>
<span class="i0">Her silk-apparel jasmin-decked, kissed rugs of golden cloth;<br></span>
<span class="i0">With henna’d hands she swirled her veil, as frail as wings of moth;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Her vīnā struck, with bended knee:<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_64">{64}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="ind">“Salam,” she quoth:<br></span>
<span class="ind">“Salam!”<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She shot as lightning up ... then paused and smiled;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Then round she spun in trance, as dervish wild;<br></span>
<span class="i0">In rainbow hue she flew, with flowers piled;<br></span>
<span class="i0">A flame a-whirl, with passion red, each curl a-twirl,<br></span>
<span class="i0">As Indra’s temple-dancer, maddening hearts<br></span>
<span class="i0">Her lips with kisses scarlet!—Eyes aglow<br></span>
<span class="i0">Now moved she sly and slow<br></span>
<span class="i0">As Punjab tigress ere for prey she starts ...<br></span>
<span class="i0">Then did unfurl a smock as white as pearl ... a girl<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of pious Southern parts<br></span>
<span class="i0">She turned, gazellean-soft and meek her glance,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The rosary and censer graced her dance;<br></span>
<span class="i0">A fragrant bud of womanhood, divinely good;<br></span>
<span class="i0">But soon her measure ceased ... with rhythmic thrill<br></span>
<span class="i0">In Delhi’s wealth arrayed she stood, in soaring mood<br></span>
<span class="i0">Then danced again, to show her perfect skill!<br></span>
<span class="i0">With flourish bold<br></span>
<span class="i0">And gold a-flash, now anklets told,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Her footsteps bold<br></span>
<span class="i0">Controlled a battle march of old!<br></span>
<span class="i0">She forward dashed as amazon of Rajput’s desert side,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_65">{65}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Her eyes with valour all a-flame, so proudly did she stride:<br></span>
<span class="ind">“Wah! Wah!” so Twilight cheered ... and she:<br></span>
<span class="ind">“Salam,” replied:<br></span>
<span class="ind">“Salam!”<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Her Jadoo-veil now changed the scene ... and lo!<br></span>
<span class="i0">In clouds she danced thro’ Kashmeer’s mountainsnow,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thro’ jungle glooms and tombs of gold below;<br></span>
<span class="i0">By Ganges led, where orchards blossoms shed, she sped<br></span>
<span class="i0">’Mid Koels as Gopi, or as Rama’s queen ...<br></span>
<span class="i0">With shimmering ivory limbs, and rubied brow<br></span>
<span class="i0">As Moghul princess now<br></span>
<span class="i0">She sat ’mid slaves on throne of Jasper sheen.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Now made her bed on elephant’s broad head, and fled<br></span>
<span class="i0">As Jin thro’ plantains green.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Then rose as butterfly from out her shawl<br></span>
<span class="i0">All poised o’er lucid lakes of Taj Mahal.—<br></span>
<span class="i0">The hour had slipped, and night at last approached so fast;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And Twilight donned his turban, chilled with fright ...<br></span>
<span class="i0">The hookah-stick, he dropped aghast, and India cast<br></span>
<span class="i0">Her jewelled slipper at her guardian Night<br></span>
<span class="i0">Who gently sailed,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_66">{66}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">And trailed the stars ... but Twilight quailed<br></span>
<span class="i0">And westward sailed!<br></span>
<span class="i0">All veiled in mists he drooped and paled!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Her lacquered cradle India spread for moonlit night to rest,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Namaskar made with folded hands! ... half serious, half a-jest,<br></span>
<span class="i0">She fibbered: “Twilight hit at thee ...<br></span>
<span class="i0">Salam, my best<br></span>
<span class="i0">Salam!”<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Elsa Kazi.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="ROSHANARA"></a>ROSHANARA</h2>
<p>The Queen Roshanara is sad and weeps in the absence of her lord in
battle. Her maidens strive to comfort her:</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">With this, to the couch<br></span>
<span class="i0">Whereon lay the Queen, so shaken<br></span>
<span class="i0">With voices she heard<br></span>
<span class="i0">And dreams she dreamt<br></span>
<span class="i0">And visions she saw.<br></span>
<span class="i0">To her they brought rose-petals<br></span>
<span class="i0">In their hands, and musks in baskets,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Perfuming her. But she was<br></span>
<span class="i0">Terror-stricken still.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Then with a wild clash of<br></span>
<span class="i0">Tambourines they fell to<br></span>
<span class="i0">An air of joyous happiness,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_67">{67}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Sweetly soared the voice,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Like that of a nightingale,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of the chief maiden who<br></span>
<span class="i0">Sang of the wind:<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“North wind and south wind,<br></span>
<span class="i0">West wind and east wind,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou shalt not moan,<br></span>
<span class="i0">But blow, blow<br></span>
<span class="i0">Gently on my Lady’s cheeks, blow.<br></span>
<span class="i0">And thou, O great sea,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou shalt not wail,<br></span>
<span class="i0">But sweetly lull my Lady to sleep.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“Red leaf and green leaf, and all ye withered leaves,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ye shall not turn the lawns into a wilderness,<br></span>
<span class="i0">For my Lady is sad,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And to see ye thus would make her sadder still.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Great trees and small trees,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ye shall not shake and shiver<br></span>
<span class="i0">When my Lady walks,<br></span>
<span class="i0">But ye shall serve her as a good shade.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“Great birds and small birds and all ye humming birds,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ye shall not wail mourning elegies,<br></span>
<span class="i0">But shall twitter and your little throats shall quiver<br></span>
<span class="i0">In an ecstasy of delight.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_68">{68}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Ye shall sing of sweet joy,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ye shall make my Lady happy.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“And ye Fairies and Cherubs,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ye Queens of the Dreams,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And Kings of the Shadows,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of the hidden people and the Unknown,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ye shall not approach my Lady,<br></span>
<span class="i0">For her heart sinks with fright,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And she trembles like a leaf<br></span>
<span class="i0">That is thrown from the branches<br></span>
<span class="i0">With the wind’s force.<br></span>
<span class="i0">All ye unknown, be banished<br></span>
<span class="i0">From my Lady, to your land<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of Mystery and Heart’s Desire,<br></span>
<span class="i0">To your land of Eternal Youth.”<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Adi K. Sett.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="IN_PRAISE_OF_HENNA"></a>IN PRAISE OF HENNA</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A kokila called from a henna-spray:<br></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Lira! liree! Lira! liree!</i><br></span>
<span class="i0">Hasten, maidens, hasten away<br></span>
<span class="i0">To gather the leaves of the henna tree.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Send your pitchers afloat on the tide,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Gather the leaves ere the dawn be old,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Grind them in mortars of amber and gold,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The fresh green leaves of the henna tree.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A kokila called from a henna-spray:<br></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Lira! liree! Lira! liree!</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_69">{69}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Hasten, maidens, hasten away<br></span>
<span class="i0">To gather the leaves of the henna tree.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The <i>tilka’s</i> red for the brow of a bride,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And betel-nut’s red for lips that are sweet;<br></span>
<span class="i0">But, for lily-like fingers and feet,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The red, the red of the henna tree.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Sarojini Naidu.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="IMPERIAL_DELHI"></a>IMPERIAL DELHI</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Imperial City! dowered with sovereign grace,<br></span>
<span class="i0">To thy renascent glory still there clings<br></span>
<span class="i0">The splendid tragedy of ancient things,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The regal woes of many a vanquished race;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And memory’s tears are cold upon thy face<br></span>
<span class="i0">E’en while thy heart’s returning gladness rings<br></span>
<span class="i0">Loud on the sleep of thy forgotten Kings,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Who in thine arms sought Life’s last resting-place.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Thy changing Kings and Kingdoms pass away,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The gorgeous legends of a bygone day,<br></span>
<span class="i0">But thou dost still immutably remain<br></span>
<span class="i0">Unbroken symbol of proud histories,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Unageing priestess of old mysteries<br></span>
<span class="i0">Before whose shrine the spells of Death are vain.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Sarojini Naidu.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_70">{70}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="DIRGE"></a>DIRGE<br><br>
(<i>In sorrow of her bereavement</i>)</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What longer need hath she of loveliness,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Whom Death has parted from her lord’s caress?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of glimmering robes like rainbow-tangled mist,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of gleaming glass or jewels on her wrist,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Blossoms or fillet-pearls to deck her head,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Or jasmine garlands to adorn her bed?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Put by the mirror of her bridal days....<br></span>
<span class="i0">Why needs she now its counsel or its praise,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Or happy symbol of the henna leaf<br></span>
<span class="i0">For hands that know the comradeship of grief,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Red spices for her lips that drink of sighs,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Or black collyrium for her weeping eyes?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Shatter her shining bracelets, break the string<br></span>
<span class="i0">Threading the mystic marriage-beads that cling<br></span>
<span class="i0">Loth to desert a sobbing throat so sweet,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Unbind the golden anklets on her feet,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Divest her of her azure veils and cloud<br></span>
<span class="i0">Her living beauty in a living shroud.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Nay, let her be! ... what comfort can we give<br></span>
<span class="i0">For joy so frail, for hope so fugitive?<br></span>
<span class="i0">The yearning pain of unfulfilled delight,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The moonless vigils of her lonely night,<br></span>
<span class="i0">For the abysmal anguish of her tears,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And flowering springs that mock her empty years?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Sarojini Naidu.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_71">{71}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="SPRING"></a>SPRING</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Young leaves grow green on the banyan twigs,<br></span>
<span class="i2">And red on the peepul tree,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The honey-birds pipe to the budding figs,<br></span>
<span class="i2">And honey-blooms call to the bee.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Poppies squander their fragile gold<br></span>
<span class="i2">In the silvery aloe-brake;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Coral and ivory lilies unfold<br></span>
<span class="i2">Their delicate lives on the lake.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Kingfishers ruffle the feathery sedge,<br></span>
<span class="i2">And all the vivid air thrills<br></span>
<span class="i0">With butterfly-wings in the wild-rose hedge,<br></span>
<span class="i2">And the luminous blue of the hills.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Sarojini Naidu.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="CRADLE-SONG"></a>CRADLE-SONG</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i2">From groves of spice,<br></span>
<span class="i2">O’er fields of rice,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Athwart the lotus-stream,<br></span>
<span class="i2">I bring for you,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Aglint with dew,<br></span>
<span class="i0">A little lovely dream.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i2">Sweet, shut your eyes,<br></span>
<span class="i2">The wild fire-flies<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_72">{72}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Dance through the fairy <i>neem</i>;<br></span>
<span class="i2">From the poppy-hole<br></span>
<span class="i2">For you I stole<br></span>
<span class="i0">A little lovely dream.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i2">Dear eyes, good-night,<br></span>
<span class="i2">In golden light<br></span>
<span class="i0">The stars around you gleam;<br></span>
<span class="i2">On you I press<br></span>
<span class="i2">With soft caress<br></span>
<span class="i0">A little lovely dream.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Sarojini Naidu.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="JUNE_SUNSET"></a>JUNE SUNSET</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Here shall my heart find its haven of calm,<br></span>
<span class="i0">By rush-fringed rivers and rain-fed streams<br></span>
<span class="i0">That glimmer thro’ meadows of lily and palm.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Here shall my soul find its true repose<br></span>
<span class="i0">Under a sunset sky of dreams<br></span>
<span class="i0">Diaphanous, amber, and rose.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The air is aglow with the glint and whirl<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of swift wild wings in their homeward flight,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Sapphire, emerald, topaz, and pearl,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Afloat in the evening light.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A brown quail cries from the tamarisk bushes,<br></span>
<span class="i0">A bulbul calls from the cassia-plume,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And thro’ the wet earth the gentian pushes<br></span>
<span class="i0">Her spikes of silvery bloom.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_73">{73}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Where’er the foot of the bright shower passes<br></span>
<span class="i0">Fragrant and fresh delights unfold;<br></span>
<span class="i0">The wild fawns feed on the scented grasses,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Wild bees on the cactus-gold.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">An ox-cart stumbles upon the rocks,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And a wistful music pursues the breeze,<br></span>
<span class="i0">From a shepherd’s pipe as he gathers his flocks<br></span>
<span class="i0">Under the pipal-trees.<br></span>
<span class="i0">And a young Banjara driving her cattle<br></span>
<span class="i0">Lifts up her voice as she glitters by<br></span>
<span class="i0">In an ancient ballad of love and battle<br></span>
<span class="i0">Set to the beat of a mystic tune,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And the faint stars gleam in the eastern sky<br></span>
<span class="i0">To herald a rising moon.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Sarojini Naidu.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="BUNKIM_CHANDRA_CHATTERJI"></a>BUNKIM CHANDRA CHATTERJI</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">How hast thou lost, O month of honey and flowers,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The voice that was thy soul! Creative showers,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The cuckoo’s daylong cry and moan of bees,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Zephyrs and streams and tender-blossoming trees,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And murmuring laughter and heart-easing tears<br></span>
<span class="i0">And tender thoughts and great, and the compeers<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of lily and jasmine and melodious birds,<br></span>
<span class="i0">All these thy children into lovely words<br></span>
<span class="i0">He changed at will and made soul-moving books<br></span>
<span class="i0">From hearts of men and women’s honeyed looks.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_74">{74}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">O master of delicious words! the bloom<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of <i>champak</i> and the breath of king-perfume<br></span>
<span class="i0">Have made each musical sentence with the noise<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of women’s ornaments and sweet household joys<br></span>
<span class="i0">And laughter tender as the voice of leaves<br></span>
<span class="i0">Playing with vernal winds. The eye receives,<br></span>
<span class="i0">That reads these lines, an image of delight,<br></span>
<span class="i0">A world with shapes of spring and summer, noon and night;<br></span>
<span class="i0">All nature in a page, no pleasing show<br></span>
<span class="i0">But men more real than the friends we know.<br></span>
<span class="i0">O plains, O hills, O rivers of sweet Bengal,<br></span>
<span class="i0">O land of love and flowers, the spring-bird’s call<br></span>
<span class="i0">And southern wind are sweet among your trees:<br></span>
<span class="i0">Your poet’s words are sweeter far than these.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Your heart was this man’s heart. Subtly he knew<br></span>
<span class="i0">The beauty and divinity in you.<br></span>
<span class="i0">His nature kingly was and as a god<br></span>
<span class="i0">In large serenity and light he trod<br></span>
<span class="i0">His daily way, yet beauty, like soft flowers<br></span>
<span class="i0">Wreathing a hero’s sword, ruled all his hours.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thus moving in these iron times and drear,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Barren of bliss and robbed of golden cheer,<br></span>
<span class="i0">He sowed the desert with ruddy-hearted rose,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The sweetest voice that ever spoke in prose.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Sri Aurobindo Ghose.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_75">{75}</a></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="A_ROSE_OF_WOMEN"></a>A ROSE OF WOMEN</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Now lilies blow upon the windy height,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Now flowers the pansy kissed by tender rain,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Narcissus builds his house of self-delight<br></span>
<span class="i0">And Love’s own fairest flower blooms again;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Vainly your gems, O meadows, you recall;<br></span>
<span class="i0">One simple girl breathes sweeter than you all.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Sri Aurobindo Ghose.</i><br></span>
<span class="i15">(<i>Meleager.</i>)<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="THE_ISLAND_GRAVE"></a>THE ISLAND GRAVE</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Ocean is there, and evening; the slow moan<br></span>
<span class="i2">Of the blue waves that like a shaken robe<br></span>
<span class="i0">Two heard together once, one hears alone.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i2">Now gliding white and hushed towards our globe<br></span>
<span class="i0">Keen January with cold eyes and clear<br></span>
<span class="i2">And snowdrops pendent in each frosty lobe<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Ushers the firstborn of the radiant year.<br></span>
<span class="i2">Haply his feet, that grind the breaking mould,<br></span>
<span class="i0">May brush the dead grass on thy secret bier;<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i2">Haply his joyless fingers wan and cold<br></span>
<span class="i0">Caress the ruined masses of thy hair,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Pale child of winter, dead ere youth was old.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_76">{76}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Art thou so desolate in that bitter air<br></span>
<span class="i2">That even his breath feels warm upon thy face?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ah! till the daffodil is born, forbear,<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i2">And I will meet thee in that lonely place,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Then the grey dawn shall end my hateful days<br></span>
<span class="i2">And death admit me to the silent ways.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Sri Aurobindo Ghose.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="INVITATION"></a>INVITATION</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">With wind and the weather beating round me<br></span>
<span class="i2">Up to the hill and the moorland I go.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Who will come with me? Who will climb with me?<br></span>
<span class="i2">Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Not in the petty circle of cities<br></span>
<span class="i2">Cramped by your doors and your walls I dwell;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Over me God is blue in the welkin,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Against me the wind and the storm rebel.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I sport with solitude here in my regions,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Of misadventure have made me a friend.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Who would live largely? who would live freely?<br></span>
<span class="i2">Here to the wind-swept uplands ascend.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I am the lord of tempest and mountain,<br></span>
<span class="i2">I am the Spirit of freedom and pride.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_77">{77}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Stark must he be and a kinsman to danger<br></span>
<span class="i2">Who shares my kingdom and walks at my side.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Sri Aurobindo Ghose.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="A_CHILDS_IMAGINATION"></a>A CHILD’S IMAGINATION</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">O thou golden image,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Miniature of bliss,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Speaking sweetly, speaking meetly!<br></span>
<span class="i2">Every word deserves a kiss.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Strange, remote, and splendid<br></span>
<span class="i2">Childhood’s fancy pure<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thrills to thoughts we cannot fathom,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Quick felicities obscure.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When the eyes grow solemn<br></span>
<span class="i2">Laughter fades away,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Nature of her mighty childhood<br></span>
<span class="i2">Recollects the Titan play;<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Woodlands touched by sunlight<br></span>
<span class="i2">Where the elves abode,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Giant meetings, Titan greetings,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Fancies of a youthful God.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">These are coming on thee<br></span>
<span class="i2">In thy secret thought;<br></span>
<span class="i0">God remembers in thy bosom<br></span>
<span class="i2">All the wonders that He wrought.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Sri Aurobindo Ghose.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_78">{78}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="EVENING"></a>EVENING</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A golden evening, when the thoughtful sun<br></span>
<span class="i2">Rejects its usual pomp in going, trees<br></span>
<span class="i0">That bend down to their green companion<br></span>
<span class="i2">And fruitful mother, vaguely whispering—these<br></span>
<span class="i0">And a wide silent sea. Such hour is nearest God,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Like rich old age when the long ways have all been trod.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Sri Aurobindo Ghose.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="THE_SEA_AT_NIGHT"></a>THE SEA AT NIGHT</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The grey sea creeps half-visible, half-hushed,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And grasps with its innumerable hands<br></span>
<span class="i0">These silent walls. I see beyond a rough<br></span>
<span class="i0">Glimmering infinity, I feel the wash<br></span>
<span class="i0">And hear the sibilation of the waves<br></span>
<span class="i0">That whisper to each other as they push<br></span>
<span class="i0">To shoreward side by side—long lines and dim<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of movement flecked with quivering spots of foam,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The quiet welter of a shifting world.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Sri Aurobindo Ghose.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="LACHHI"></a>LACHHI<br><br>
<i>From a well-known Panjābī folk-song</i></h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Aha! When Lachhi spills water,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Spills water, spills water, spills water,<br></span>
<span class="i0">There sandal grows—where Lachhi spills water.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_79">{79}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Aha! Lachhi asks the girls,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The girls, the girls, the girls,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Oh, what coloured veil suits a fair complexion?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Aha! The girls said truly,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Said truly, said truly, said truly,<br></span>
<span class="i0">A veil that is black becomes a fair complexion.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What then your fortune, Lachhi?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Your fortune, Lachhi, your fortune, Lachhi, your fortune, Lachhi?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ho! your boy like the moon, what then your fortune?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Who’ll give you milk to drink, Lachhi?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Drink Lachhi, drink Lachhi, drink Lachhi?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Your friendship with the goatherds is sundered!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Who’ll give you milk to drink?<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="c">[This song is sung to a purely folk-air, not in any definite <i>rāg</i>.]</p>
<h2><a id="AZME"></a>AZMĒ</h2>
<p><i>Note.</i>—The story goes that Gāmī wrote the song about a girl of Kutahār
(a village in the Maraz pargana of Kāshmīr) named Azmē, and that it
became the occasion of trouble for its author. Complaints were made
about Gāmī, and his father reported the matter to the Tahsildār of the
district; but the poet explained<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_80">{80}</a></span> that Azmē meant “to-day” and that the
whole song had only a Sufī significance.</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Azmē, love of thee came to me, fortunate vision!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Azmē, show me thy face, O darling.<br></span>
<span class="i4"><i>Azmē, love of thee, etc.</i><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Say where shall I wait, in Shāngas or Naugām?<br></span>
<span class="i0">An ill name I got in Kutahār!<br></span>
<span class="i4"><i>Azmē, love of thee, etc.</i><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I sought thee in Achhaval, Brang, Kutahār—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Lakhs of hardships I suffered, my darling.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Pomegranate thy cheeks, or <i>saza-posh</i>—<br></span>
<span class="i0">How dark are thine eyes, my darling!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Shining thy brows as though with sweat—<br></span>
<span class="i0">How many a one thy nose has slain, my darling!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Sitting by the door, choosing saffron flowers,<br></span>
<span class="i0">I know not for whom, my darling!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What a famous spinning-wheel is there in Kolgām,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Matchless its handle, my darling!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Silver are the strings of thy spinning-wheel,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Those who see it fall ill with wonder, my darling!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_81">{81}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Skilfully pounding the rice so fine,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The good shape of the cypress has Azmē, my darling!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Bright is her dress as a pearl,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Short are the plaits of Azmē, my darling!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Slowly combing her hair so fine—<br></span>
<span class="i0">I will count up thy plaits, my darling!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Kāmader has passed through Kutahār,<br></span>
<span class="i0">All folk to him must yield (?), my darling!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Hapless Māhmud, where shall he wait for thee?<br></span>
<span class="i0">An ill name I won in Kutahār, my darling!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Māhmud Gāmī.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="AWAKE_MY_FRIEND"></a>AWAKE, MY FRIEND</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Awake, my friend!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Be glad, spring has come!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Spread jasmine on the balconies,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Lasting is the glory of jasmine!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">From afar I saw the Beloved come hither,<br></span>
<span class="i0">That <i>Hourī</i> came to my courtyard!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Breast to breast he embraced me before the people,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Openly was his coming to be seen by any!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_82">{82}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Ah, burn my blood to clots of fondness,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Accomplish (in my heart) the love of Islam!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">These things thou shouldst not reveal among drunkards,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Lest to-morrow there be reproach!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Māhmud Vāzah will tell the secret of Love,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Hans Rāja shall he be named!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Māhmud Vāzah.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="MARRIAGE_SONG"></a>MARRIAGE SONG</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Spring has come, with almond blossom,<br></span>
<span class="i0">All about Shārikā Dēvī!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Flower-beds are walled about—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Flowers I’ll offer, night and morn!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Spring has come, with almond blossom,<br></span>
<span class="i0">All about Rāginyā Dēvī!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Lotus flowers are walled about—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Milk I’ll pour her, night and morn!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Spring has come, with almond blossom,<br></span>
<span class="i0">All about Zālā Dēvī!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Mint-plants are walled about—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Pūjā I’ll make, night and morn!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Spring has come, with almond blossom,<br></span>
<span class="i0">All about Shivajī!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_83">{83}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Sandal trees are walled about—<br></span>
<span class="i0">I will anoint Him night and morn!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Spring has come, with almond blossom,<br></span>
<span class="i0">All about Nārāyan!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Tulsi plants are walled about—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Saffron I’ll rub night and morn!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Ananda Coomaraswamy.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p><i>Note.</i>—By the names Shārikā, Rāginyā, etc., are meant places as well
as the divinities worshipped. Thus Shārikā (Satī, Pārvatī) is Hari
Parbat, where there is a festival to Shārikā in March; Rāginyā (Kīr
Bavānī) is an island at Inlamul, where there is a festival in May; Zālā
(another form of Pārvatī) is a hill where there is a festival in June;
Shivajī is a village in the Zainager pargana; Nārāyan is a <i>tīrtha</i> near
Bāramuta.</p>
<h2><a id="MYSTIC_LOVE_SONG_FROM_THIRTY_INDIAN_SONGS"></a>MYSTIC LOVE SONG FROM “THIRTY INDIAN SONGS”</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>Quietly come, O Beauty, come!</i><br></span>
<span class="i0">O! cups of wine I’ll fill for thee.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Come to our house, O Beauty, come;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Come as a guest, O Beauty, come:<br></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Quietly come, O Beauty, come!</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="page_84">{84}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Borders twain thy veil adorn;<br></span>
<span class="i0">At early dawn, O Beauty, rise—<br></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Quietly come, O Beauty, come!</i><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A silken border thy veil adorns;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Father has sent thee a cradle of bells—<br></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Quietly come, O Beauty, come!</i><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Hast thou come from the heavens, O lovely bird?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Wilt come by thyself, or a snare shall I spread?<br></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Quietly come, O Beauty, come!</i><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">He who made this golden bracelet,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Was he only a goldsmith and never a master of craft?<br></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Quietly come, O Beauty, come!</i><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Ananda Coomaraswamy.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="THE_PUNJAB_AUTUMN_THE_SEASON_OF_THE_COOLING_DEW"></a>THE PUNJAB AUTUMN: THE SEASON OF THE COOLING DEW<br><br>
(<i>Composed on the birthday of Guru Nanak, 1916</i>)</h2>
<h3>I</h3>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The piping of the rain-birds has ceased,<br></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Dadar</i> and <i>peepiya</i> are silent now,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The dance of the peacock is over,<br></span>
<span class="i0">It is the season of the cooling dew!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The dew is falling everywhere,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wet is every rose.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The gentle breath of heaven blows.<br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_85">{85}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h3>II</h3>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The clouds have stopped their thunder,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The lightning has hidden her spark,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The floods of the Punjab rivers have rolled away,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The rivers have shrunk low;<br></span>
<span class="i0">The storm is over, and the winds blow soft and slow.<br></span>
<span class="i0">It is the season of the cooling dew!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The dew is falling everywhere,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wet is every rose.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The gentle breath of heaven blows.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h3>III</h3>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The sweet, sweet dew wets all with joy,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Wet with joy are the night and the moon,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And dewdrops quiver over the stars on high,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And joy-wet blows the wind on my face.<br></span>
<span class="i0">It is the season of the cooling dew!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The dew is falling everywhere,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wet is every rose.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The gentle breath of heaven blows.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h3>IV</h3>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The cool, soft touches of the falling dew calm my soul;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And my mind, blessed with the dew-joys calm and cool, is at rest!<br></span>
<span class="i0">My beloved! come to me as the dew of my eyes!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_86">{86}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Come to-day as the dew cometh!<br></span>
<span class="i0">And cool my soul parched by the pain of long, long separation!<br></span>
<span class="i0">My beloved! it is the season of the cooling dew!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The dew is falling everywhere,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wet is every rose.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The gentle breath of heaven blows.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h3>V</h3>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">O master of the order of the <i>Seli</i>!<a id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a><br></span>
<span class="i0">O dweller of heaven!<br></span>
<span class="i0">O great giver!<br></span>
<span class="i0">My Guru Nanak! Come to me to-day!<br></span>
<span class="i0">O light of lights!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thy seats are the sun and the moon!<br></span>
<span class="i0">My beloved! return to me to-day!<br></span>
<span class="i0">It is the season of the cooling dew!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The dew is falling everywhere,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wet is every rose.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The gentle breath of heaven blows.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h3>VI</h3>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">It is the season of slumber and dew.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Cruel is all separation!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Pray remove the distances that divide me from thee.<br></span>
<span class="i0">My beloved! it is the season of the cooling dew!<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_87">{87}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">The dew is falling everywhere,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wet is every rose.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The gentle breath of heaven blows.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h3>VII</h3>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">My love! stay no more in distant lands away from me!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Come into the vacant courtyard of my heart!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Dye my soul with the joys of thy presence,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And make it now thy home.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Stay at home! Go no more out of me!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Dwell in my soul, before my eyes!<br></span>
<span class="i0">And for ever be there the perennial draught of my eyes.<br></span>
<span class="i0">My love! it is the season of the cooling dew!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The dew is falling everywhere,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wet is every rose.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The gentle breath of heaven blows.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h3>VIII</h3>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Fill my tearful gaze for ever with thy celestial face;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And let my eyes be for ever wet with the joy of seeing thee!<br></span>
<span class="i0">My love! dwell for ever in my eyes!<br></span>
<span class="i0">It is the season of the cooling dew!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The dew is falling everywhere,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wet is every rose.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The gentle breath of heaven blows.<br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_88">{88}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h3>IX</h3>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">It is now the dewy season,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The season of the happy meetings of love,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The season of the quenching of all fires of pain.<br></span>
<span class="i0">To me everything seems to be dew-wet;<br></span>
<span class="i0">From the blue of heaven the dew is falling soft;<br></span>
<span class="i0">It is the dew of deep, deep unions;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wonder and worship is in the eyes.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The separated ones shall meet!<br></span>
<span class="i0">It is the season of the cooling dew!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The dew is falling everywhere,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wet is every rose.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The gentle breath of heaven blows.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h3>X</h3>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Now is the time of everlasting embraces!<br></span>
<span class="i0">My beloved! come, meet me to-day!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Take me to thy bosom!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The dew is flooding things with joy.<br></span>
<span class="i0">My love! come to me!<br></span>
<span class="i0">It is the season of the cooling dew!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The dew is falling everywhere,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wet is every rose.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The gentle breath of heaven blows.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h3>XI</h3>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The dew cometh from heaven down!<br></span>
<span class="i0">It bringeth heavenly peace for all,<br></span>
<span class="i0">It wetteth all with sweetness.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Invisible, it raineth deep into souls,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_89">{89}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">It raineth love and peace and joy.<br></span>
<span class="i0">It raineth sweetness.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Dew! dew! my comrades!<br></span>
<span class="i0">It is the season of the cooling dew!<br></span>
<span class="i0">The dew is falling everywhere,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wet is every rose.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The gentle breath of heaven blows.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">(Trans.) <i>Puran Singh</i><br></span>
<span class="i0">(<i>Nārgās: Bhai Vir Singh</i>).<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="RAJHANS_THE_PRINCE_OF_SWANS"></a>RÂJHANS (THE PRINCE OF SWANS)</h2>
<p>Râjhans! The Golden Swan! Is it thy plumage that shines, or the sunrise
on the eternal snows?</p>
<p>The dweller of <i>Mân-Sarôwar</i>, the lake on the roof of the world! Thy
golden beak parts milk from water, in the living stream thou art a
liberated soul!</p>
<p>A rosary of spotless pearls is in thy beak, and how sublime is the lofty
curve of thy neck against the Heaven’s vast azure!</p>
<p>Thou livest on pearls, the nectar drops so pure of Hari Nam.</p>
<p>Great Soul! lover of the azure transparent Infinite! Thou canst not
breathe out of the <i>Mân-Sarôwar</i> air, nor canst thou live out of sight
of those loftiest peaks of snow, and away from the diluted perfume of
musk blowing from the wild trail of the deer!</p>
<p>Thou art the spirit of Beauty, thou art far<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_90">{90}</a></span> beyond the reach of human
thought. Thy isolation reflecteth the glory of the starry sky in thy
Nectar Lake of Heart in whose waters the sun daily dips himself!</p>
<p>Thou hast the limitless expanse of air, the companionship of fragrant
gods,</p>
<p>And yet we know thou leavest those Fair Abodes to come to share the woes
of human love;</p>
<p>Thou alightest unawares on the grain-filled barn of the humble farmer,
awakening Nature’s maiden hearts, thou informest love.</p>
<p>It is thy delight to see woman love man, the small ripplings of a human
heart in love flutter thee in thy lofty seat.</p>
<p>Thou art the soul liberated through love; thou knowest the worth of
love, flying for its sake even midst the cities’ smoke and dust,
perchance, to save a human soul through love!</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="ind">“Sisters of the Spinning-Wheel”:<br></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Puran Singh</i>.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="LATER_LYRICS_POPLAR_BEECH_AND_WEEPING_WILLOW"></a>LATER LYRICS: POPLAR, BEECH, AND WEEPING WILLOW</h2>
<h3>I</h3>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Shapely poplar, shivering white, poplar like a maiden,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thinking, musing softly here, so light and so unladen,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_91">{91}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">That with every breath and stir, perpetually you gladden,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Teach me your still secrecies of thought that never sadden.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">From the heavy-hearted earth, earth of grief and passion,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Maiden, would you spring with me, and leave men’s lowly fashion,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Skyward lift with me your thoughts in cumberless elation,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Every leaf and every shoot a virgin aspiration.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The blue day, the floating clouds, the stars shall you for palace<br></span>
<span class="i0">Proffer their cathedral pomp, dawn her rosy chalice.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Where the birds are, you shall throng and revel to be lonely<br></span>
<span class="i0">In the blue of heaven to spire and sway with breezes only.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h3>II</h3>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Beech, of leafy isles the queen, beech, of trees the lady,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Soaring to a tower of sighs, in branches soft and shady,<br></span>
<span class="i0">You that sunward lift your strength, to make of shadow duty,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Teach me, tree, your heavenly height, and earth-remembering beauty.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_92">{92}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Maiden, would you soar like me, with day-upclouding tresses,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Beauty into bounty change, bend down the eye that blesses;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Make from heaven a shelter cool, to shepherd and sheep silly<br></span>
<span class="i0">Shadowing with shadiness, hot rose and fainting lily.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Through your glorious heart of gloom, the noonday wind awaking<br></span>
<span class="i0">In an ecstasy shall set swaying, blowing, shaking;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Leafy branches, in their nests set the sweet birds rocking<br></span>
<span class="i0">Till their happy song break out, the noonday ardour mocking.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Willow sweet, willow sad, willow by the river,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Taught by pensive love to droop, where ceaseless waters shiver,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Teach me, steadfast sorrower, your mournful grace of graces;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Weeping to make beautiful the silent water-places.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Maiden, would you learn of me the loveliness of mourning,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Droop into the chill, wan wave, strength, hardness, lofty scorning;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_93">{93}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Drench your drooping soul in tears, content to love and languish,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Gaze in sorrow’s looking-glass, and see the face of anguish?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In the very wash of woe, as your bowed soul shall linger,<br></span>
<span class="i0">You shall touch the sheer, bright stars, and on the moon set finger;<br></span>
<span class="i0">You shall hear, where brooks have birth, the mountain-pine’s emotion,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Catch upon the broadening stream the sound and swell of ocean.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Manmohan Ghose.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="ORPHIC_MYSTERIES_THE_YELLOW_BUTTERFLY"></a>ORPHIC MYSTERIES: THE YELLOW BUTTERFLY</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Of all shy visitants, I love<br></span>
<span class="i2">That darling butterfly,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Whose wings are to the cornfield’s wave<br></span>
<span class="i2">A hovering reply.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Yellow as dancing wheat-ears ripe<br></span>
<span class="i2">He suns with his gay youth,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And feeds me with the gold of light,<br></span>
<span class="i2">The thrice-tried gleam of truth.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When, glooming back upon myself,<br></span>
<span class="i2">The garden path I pace,<br></span>
<span class="i0">He comes and makes my gladdened eyes<br></span>
<span class="i2">The dial to his grace.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_94">{94}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Unfailing omen, punctual sign!<br></span>
<span class="i2">No sooner am I out,<br></span>
<span class="i0">He hovers by on golden wings<br></span>
<span class="i2">To chase the grey of doubt.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">All melancholy thoughts to thresh,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Winnow the blissful grain<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of immortality, and sift<br></span>
<span class="i2">From mortal fear and pain.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Day after day the marvel grows;<br></span>
<span class="i2">Ever his gladsome morn<br></span>
<span class="i0">Shines down the blackness of my grief<br></span>
<span class="i2">With glancing wings of scorn.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Now from the creeper’s bowery height,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Now o’er the garden wall;<br></span>
<span class="i0">From far-off places, or where first<br></span>
<span class="i2">The wonder did befall.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In that low bed of coxcomb flowers<br></span>
<span class="i2">Beneath her window-sill,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Her chamber-window, where he warms<br></span>
<span class="i2">Homeward my spirit still;<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Or plumb-down from the soaring roof<br></span>
<span class="i2">He to my awful eye<br></span>
<span class="i0">His radiant message angels me<br></span>
<span class="i2">From azure depths of sky.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_95">{95}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I cannot with ungrateful heart<br></span>
<span class="i2">Feel God’s fair world a blank.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Straight for the sunny thought of her<br></span>
<span class="i2">His yellow wings I thank.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I cannot still, her sight to want,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Weep like a thwarted boy,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Cry outright, but with darting gold<br></span>
<span class="i2">He chides me back to joy.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The stupor of the miracle<br></span>
<span class="i2">Ever renewed, the fear,<br></span>
<span class="i0">I lose in charmed tranquillity,<br></span>
<span class="i2">For she, my saint, is here.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Who works it? No dead relic sweet<br></span>
<span class="i2">Of her, my living saint,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Perfect beyond the skill of thought<br></span>
<span class="i2">Of fancy’s power to paint.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Whole from her suffering martyrdom<br></span>
<span class="i2">She is arisen. No tomb<br></span>
<span class="i0">Could hold her, no far blissful heaven<br></span>
<span class="i2">Allure. Her heaven is home.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">No place more holy than these walks,<br></span>
<span class="i2">This garden, where the flowers<br></span>
<span class="i0">Swing censers breathing up to God,<br></span>
<span class="i2">This house a Book of Hours.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_96">{96}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">No room but memory’s sacred hand,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Gilded, illuminate,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Paints how she suffered, loved and died—<br></span>
<span class="i2">The legend of her fate.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In heaven she is; beatitude<br></span>
<span class="i2">To her; her loved ones still,<br></span>
<span class="i0">So loving she, here, here, enskyed<br></span>
<span class="i2">To guard. It is God’s will.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Here in the old sweet home where, still<br></span>
<span class="i2">A guardian spirit, she<br></span>
<span class="i0">Heals, comforts, counsels, and performs<br></span>
<span class="i2">Her angel ministry.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Manmohan Ghose.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="MYVANWY"></a>MYVANWY</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Oft hast thou heard it, that old true saying,<br></span>
<span class="i0">’Tis like and unlike makes the happiest music.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Then, gravely smiling, scorn me not, Myvanwy,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Fairest of maidens.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Thou who in sunlight sittest, pensive leaning<br></span>
<span class="i0">At the open window, thy hand deep-buried<br></span>
<span class="i0">In dark sweet clusters of thy hair, and gazest<br></span>
<span class="i6">O’er the wide ocean.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Yes, o’er the ocean far, far in the distance,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Is my own country, and other soil bore me<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_97">{97}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Than thy dear birthplace, other sun than England’s<br></span>
<span class="i6">Nourished my spirit.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Yet for this slight not my heart as alien:<br></span>
<span class="i0">What can green England show to match those regions<br></span>
<span class="i0">Save thyself only, what hath she that merits<br></span>
<span class="i6">Prouder remembrance?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Nothing! nor any shore that hears the Ocean,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Nothing can match their beauty! If Myvanwy<br></span>
<span class="i0">Had but an exile’s sad heart in her bosom,<br></span>
<span class="i6">She too would say so.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She too would say so, and back in thought returning,<br></span>
<span class="i0">How would her sweet eyes fill with tears of gladness,<br></span>
<span class="i0">How would she marvel, the lovely maiden,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Breathless with gazing!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There, stretching lonely, do the giant mountains<br></span>
<span class="i0">Rise with their ages of snows to heaven,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Snows, the heart shudders, so far away seem they,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Fearfully lovely:<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There is the tall palm, like her own dear stature,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The land’s green lady, and riotously hang there,<br></span>
<span class="i0">All for Myvanwy’s lips, the strange, delicious<br></span>
<span class="i6">Fruits of the tropics;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_98">{98}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">And the vast elephant that dreams for ages,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Lost among dim leaves and things of old, remembers:<br></span>
<span class="i0">Would he not, rousing at her name’s sweet rumour,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Pace to behold her?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Oh me! what glories would her eyes enkindle,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Eyes with their quick imaginative rapture!<br></span>
<span class="i0">How shall I picture to her all the strangeness,<br></span>
<span class="i6">All the enchantment,<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In that enchanted land of noon? My heart faints<br></span>
<span class="i0">And my tongue falters: for long ago, Myvanwy,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Deep in the east where now but evening gathers,<br></span>
<span class="i6">Lost is my country.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Long ago hither in passionate boyhood,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Lightly an exile, lightly leagues I wandered<br></span>
<span class="i0">Over the bitter foam: so far Fate led me<br></span>
<span class="i6">Only to love thee.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Lost is that country, and all but forgotten<br></span>
<span class="i0">’Mid these chill breezes, yet still, oh, believe me,<br></span>
<span class="i0">All her meridian suns and ardent summers<br></span>
<span class="i6">Burn in my bosom.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Manmohan Ghose.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_99">{99}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="KISMET"></a>KISMET</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Before our births, Kussam, who makes our fate,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ordained us happy or unfortunate,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And wrote upon our brow and on our hands<br></span>
<span class="i0">The signs that tell to him who understands<br></span>
<span class="i0">Our Destiny, decreed for good or ill.<br></span>
<span class="i0">So pass the Wise, bending to Allah’s will,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Their lives into His mighty hands resigned.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">One child is cherished; one to hands unkind<br></span>
<span class="i0">Is given; one dies in life’s first shining dawn;<br></span>
<span class="i0">One longs to die, but Death when called upon<br></span>
<span class="i0">Turns from the supplicating voice his ear;<br></span>
<span class="i0">One starves in poverty; one is Amir<br></span>
<span class="i0">And drives his elephant in lordly state;<br></span>
<span class="i0">One lives in love; one girdled round with hate<br></span>
<span class="i0">Dwells ever in a bitter world of strife;<br></span>
<span class="i0">One in the moment of this earthly life<br></span>
<span class="i0">Is ruler, sitting on a regal seat;<br></span>
<span class="i0">One crawls a slave, obedient at his feet.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And Allah changes all as He desires,<br></span>
<span class="i0">He is an artist whom His art inspires:<br></span>
<span class="i0">This world the picture He is painting still.<br></span>
<span class="i0">But with his share of fate He gave man will<br></span>
<span class="i0">To fashion circumstance by its control,<br></span>
<span class="i0">To make a path of healing for his soul,<br></span>
<span class="i0">To act, to think, to feel aright until<br></span>
<span class="i0">He knows his will as one with Allah’s will.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Inayat Khan.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_100">{100}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="TANSEN"></a>TANSEN</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Tansen, the singer, in great Akbar’s Court<br></span>
<span class="i0">Won great renown; through the Badshahi Fort<br></span>
<span class="i0">His voice rang like the sound of silver bells<br></span>
<span class="i0">And Akbar ravished heard. The story tells<br></span>
<span class="i0">How the King praised him, gave him many a gem,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Called him chief jewel in his diadem.<br></span>
<span class="i0">One day the singer sang the Song of Fire,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The Deepak <i>Râg</i>, and burning like a pyre<br></span>
<span class="i0">His body burst into consuming flame.<br></span>
<span class="i0">To cure his burning heart a maiden came<br></span>
<span class="i0">And sang Malhar, the song of water cold,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Till health returned, and comfort as of old.<br></span>
<span class="ind">“Mighty thy Teacher must be and divine,”<br></span>
<span class="i0">Great Akbar said; “magic indeed is thine,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Learnt at his feet.” Then happy Tansen bowed<br></span>
<span class="i0">And said, “Beyond the world’s ignoble crowd,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Scorning its wealth, remote and far-away<br></span>
<span class="i0">He dwells within a cave of Himalay.”<br></span>
<span class="ind">“Could I but see him once,” desired the King,<br></span>
<span class="ind">“Sit at his feet awhile, and listening<br></span>
<span class="i0">Hear his celestial song, I would deny<br></span>
<span class="i0">My state and walk in robes of poverty.”<br></span>
<span class="i0">Then said Tansen, “As you desire, Huzoor,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Indeed ’twere better as a slave and poor<br></span>
<span class="i0">To come; for he, lifted above the things<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_101">{101}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Of earth, disdains to sing to earthly kings.”<br></span>
<span class="i0">Long was the road, and Akbar as a slave<br></span>
<span class="i0">Followed Tansen who rode towards the cave<br></span>
<span class="i0">High in the mountains. At the singer’s feet<br></span>
<span class="i0">They knelt and prayed with supplication sweet:<br></span>
<span class="ind">“Towards thy shrine, lo, we have journeyed long,<br></span>
<span class="i0">O Holy Master, bless us with thy song!”<br></span>
<span class="i0">Then Ostad, won by their humility,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Sang songs of peace and high felicity;<br></span>
<span class="i0">The Malkous <i>Raga</i> all ecstatic rang<br></span>
<span class="i0">Till birds and beasts, enchanted as he sang,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Gathered to hear. O’er Akbar’s dreaming soul<br></span>
<span class="i0">He felt the waves of heavenly rapture roll,<br></span>
<span class="i0">But, as he turned to speak his words of praise,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ostad had vanished from his wondering gaze.<br></span>
<span class="ind">“Tell me, Tansen, what theme this is that holds<br></span>
<span class="i0">The soul enchanted, and the heart enfolds<br></span>
<span class="i0">In high delight”; and, when he knew the name,<br></span>
<span class="ind">“Tell me,” again he said, “could you the same<br></span>
<span class="i0">Theme sing to lure my heart to paths untrod?”<br></span>
<span class="ind">“Ah no, to thee I sing; he sings to God.”<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Inayat Khan.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The high ambition of the drop of rain<br></span>
<span class="i2">Is to be merged in the unfettered sea;<br></span>
<span class="i0">My sorrow when it passed all bounds of pain,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Changing, became itself the remedy.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_102">{102}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Behold how great is my humility!<br></span>
<span class="i2">Under your cruel yoke I suffered sore;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Now I no longer feel thy tyranny,<br></span>
<span class="i2">I hunger for the pain that then I bore.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Why did the fragrance of the flowers outflow<br></span>
<span class="i2">If not to breathe with benediction sweet<br></span>
<span class="i0">Across her path? Why did the soft wind blow<br></span>
<span class="i2">If not to kiss the ground before her feet?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Ghalib.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">How difficult is the thorny way of strife<br></span>
<span class="i2">That man hath stumbled in since time began!<br></span>
<span class="i0">And in the tangled business of this life<br></span>
<span class="i2">How difficult to play the part of man!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When she decrees there should exist no more<br></span>
<span class="i2">My humble cottage, through its broken walls,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And cruelly drifting in the open door,<br></span>
<span class="i2">The frozen rain of desolation falls.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">O mad Desire, why dost thou flame and burn<br></span>
<span class="i2">And bear my soul further and further yet<br></span>
<span class="i0">To the Belovéd? Then, why dost thou turn<br></span>
<span class="i2">To bitter disappointment and regret?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Such light there gleams from the Belovéd’s face<br></span>
<span class="i2">That every eye becomes her worshipper,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And every mirror, looking on her grace,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Desires to be the frame enclosing her.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_103">{103}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Unhappy lovers, slaves of cruel chance,<br></span>
<span class="i2">In this grim place of slaughter strange indeed<br></span>
<span class="i0">Your joy to see unveiled her haughty glance<br></span>
<span class="i2">That flashes like the scimitar of Ede.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When I had hardly drawn my latest breath,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Pardon she asked for killing me. Alas!<br></span>
<span class="i0">How soon repentance followed on my death,<br></span>
<span class="i2">How quick her unavailing sorrow was!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Ghalib.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Thy beauty flashes like a sword<br></span>
<span class="i2">Serene and keen and merciless;<br></span>
<span class="i0">But great as is thy cruelty,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Even greater is thy loveliness.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">It is the gift of God to thee,<br></span>
<span class="i2">This beauty rare and exquisite;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Why dost thou hide it thus from me?<br></span>
<span class="i2">I shall not steal nor sully it.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And as thy beauty shines, in Heaven<br></span>
<span class="i2">There climbs upon its path of fire<br></span>
<span class="i0">The star that lights my rival’s way,<br></span>
<span class="i2">And with it mounts his heart’s desire.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Even in thy house is jealousy,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Thy youth demands the lover’s praise<br></span>
<span class="i0">Over thy beauty, which itself<br></span>
<span class="i2">Is jealous of thy gracious ways.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_104">{104}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I died with joy when winningly<br></span>
<span class="i2">I heard the Well-Beloved call—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Zahir, where is my beauty gone?<br></span>
<span class="i2">Thou must have robbed me after all.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Zahir.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I shall not try to flee the sword of Death,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Nor, fearing it, a watchful vigil keep;<br></span>
<span class="i0">It will be nothing but a sigh, a breath,<br></span>
<span class="i2">A turning on the other side to sleep.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Through all the close entanglements of earth<br></span>
<span class="i2">My spirit shaking off its bonds shall fare<br></span>
<span class="i0">And pass, and rise in new unfettered birth,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Escaping from this labyrinth of care.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Within the mortal caravanserai<br></span>
<span class="i2">No rest and no abiding place I know;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I linger here for but a fleeting day,<br></span>
<span class="i2">And at the morrow’s summoning I go.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What are these bonds that try to shackle me?<br></span>
<span class="i2">Through all their intricate chains my way I find;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I travel like a wandering melody<br></span>
<span class="i2">That floats untamed, untaken, on the wind.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">From an unsympathetic world I flee<br></span>
<span class="i2">To you, your love and fellowship I crave,<br></span>
<span class="i0">O Singers dead, Sauda and Mushafi,<br></span>
<span class="i2">I lay my song as tribute on your grave.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Amir.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_105">{105}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="VOICE_IN_THE_AIR"></a>VOICE IN THE AIR</h2>
<p><i>The vaulted roof opens. The guests feel that a Being is entering from
above. They see nothing, but all hear a voice in the air.</i></p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">High above the clouds in the Home of Light I<br></span>
<span class="i4">dwell.<br></span>
<span class="i0">My days are passed in the peace of Great Understanding.<br></span>
<span class="i0">For their welfare do I visit men in all corners of<br></span>
<span class="i4">the earth.<br></span>
<span class="i0">At the command of the Mother I move, up and<br></span>
<span class="i4">down, East and West, showering the rays of<br></span>
<span class="i4">Freedom upon all;<br></span>
<span class="i0">The Mother is the Circle, I am but a curve;<br></span>
<span class="i0">The Mother is the Whole, I am but a part;<br></span>
<span class="i0">The Mother is the Opening Lotus, I am but a<br></span>
<span class="i4">single petal;<br></span>
<span class="i0">The Mother is the Ocean of Honey, I am but a<br></span>
<span class="i4">thirsty bee.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Men call me Lord of the Sky and Father of the<br></span>
<span class="i4">Heavens. They know naught who speak<br></span>
<span class="i4">thus.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am the Space and its all-infilling Light and the<br></span>
<span class="i4">sight in Man’s eyes which sees them both;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am the Sense whereby Man knows the Quarters;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I dwell in peace, encompassing all these living<br></span>
<span class="i4">orbs of light;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_106">{106}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">I know the secret of the Primal Song; the gods<br></span>
<span class="i4">are all the offspring of a Song, by them unheard;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I keep the record of men’s thoughts in my infinite<br></span>
<span class="i4">House of Sky;<br></span>
<span class="i0">From æon to æon I hold up the Mirror of Thought<br></span>
<span class="i4">to each man’s mind, to lead him across the<br></span>
<span class="i4">shoreless Sea of Mirage;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Yet I do but the bidding of the Mother of Eternal<br></span>
<span class="i4">Power;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am in all hearts, save only those where Love is<br></span>
<span class="i4">not.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p><i>The Being rises up through the open roof, and the guests hear his voice
dying away in the far-off sky. The vault of the Hall closes. The
southern door opens. A Being enters. They hear his voice.</i></p>
<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Voice in the Air</span>:</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">By the will of the Mother I am the Lord of the<br></span>
<span class="i4">Air;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I reign over all who breathe;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I carry sweet fragrance from ocean to ocean;<br></span>
<span class="i0">My song is heard in the mountain forest, but<br></span>
<span class="i4">men hear not my music in the clouds;<br></span>
<span class="i0">My home is near to the Lord of the Heart;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am the Lord of Life’s Brother and Playmate;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I walk with Man from the door of Birth to the<br></span>
<span class="i4">door of Death; waking and sleeping, by day<br></span>
<span class="i4">and by night, I watch over him;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I sweep from Pole to Pole and none can withstand<br></span>
<span class="i4">my power;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_107">{107}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">I am the Friend of the Flowers—from one to<br></span>
<span class="i4">another I bear sweet messages of love;<br></span>
<span class="i0">This all I do at the command of the Mother of<br></span>
<span class="i4">Life.<br></span>
<span class="i0">There stands the Mother tenderly smiling, filling<br></span>
<span class="i4">with sweetness the Quarters of the Heavens.<br></span>
<span class="i4">Yea, like a spreading mountain pine She<br></span>
<span class="i4">stands in the soft autumn twilight, and it<br></span>
<span class="i4">pleases Her that I play upon my reed for<br></span>
<span class="i4">the comfort of all creatures that breathe.<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p><i>The light dies out, leaving the Hall in darkness. After a while a kind
of murky earth-light diffuses itself over the lower part of the Hall.
The guests hear the sound of a mighty crying, like the wailing of a
sacked city in the far distance. A voice, broken by sighs and groans,
speaks from below.</i></p>
<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Voice</span>:</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I come. Ye ask, “Who art thou?” Gods have<br></span>
<span class="i4">not named me. I call myself “Humanity”;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I dwell on land and in the seas; I sweep through<br></span>
<span class="i4">the air and the ether.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am man and woman and the intermediate one;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am the ape and the tiger and the lamb.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I wander in the woods of dark continents as the<br></span>
<span class="i4">savage cannibal; I watch by the bedside<br></span>
<span class="i4">of the sick in the home of mercy.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am ferocity in the beast of prey; I am compassion<br></span>
<span class="i4">in the heart of the mother.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_108">{108}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">I devour my own offspring; I sacrifice myself to<br></span>
<span class="i4">save others.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I change—every moment, every season, every<br></span>
<span class="i4">æon;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I fill the pages of my history with romances<br></span>
<span class="i4">written in blood;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Out of my dreams of heaven I create this earth;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I wax strong and wage war to please Death;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I laugh at Death and hurl him into the flaming<br></span>
<span class="i4">furnace of hell—and this I do to please my<br></span>
<span class="i4">children.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I enter the portals of Life with strong crying—and<br></span>
<span class="i4">with a sigh I bid farewell to Life.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am prophet; I am idiot;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am king and shepherd and fisherman.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I put my foot on the neck of kings and shepherds<br></span>
<span class="i4">and fishermen and turn them into dust;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And with their dust do I besmear myself and<br></span>
<span class="i4">madly dance over green meadows.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am—what ye fear to think of me; I will be—what<br></span>
<span class="i4">ye love to dream of me.<br></span>
<span class="i0">But I will baffle all your fond expectations and<br></span>
<span class="i4">all your clever calculations;<br></span>
<span class="i0">In a moment of infinite time I will take the whole<br></span>
<span class="i4">world by the hand and lift it up to the heaven<br></span>
<span class="i4">of my heart.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am the most erring of the High Mother’s children,<br></span>
<span class="i4">but one sure instinct I possess—I stand erect<br></span>
<span class="i4">the moment I fall, and by the aid of the very<br></span>
<span class="i4">obstacle that caused my fall do I rise again.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_109">{109}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">I sorrow not over my shortcomings and my<br></span>
<span class="i4">sufferings;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I hope—yet know that my hopes are too wild to<br></span>
<span class="i4">be realised.<br></span>
<span class="i0">In a part of Space called the Corner of Pain I<br></span>
<span class="i4">have made my home;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I breathe the atmosphere of pain—I drink from<br></span>
<span class="i4">the well of pain—I eat the fruits of the tree<br></span>
<span class="i4">of pain—my sleep is troubled by the dream<br></span>
<span class="i4">of pain.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I love not Pain—Pain loves me;<br></span>
<span class="i0">The whole history of my existence is a constant<br></span>
<span class="i4">fleeing from this cruel lover of mine;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I have prayed to God to be delivered from him—has<br></span>
<span class="i4">He heard my prayer?<br></span>
<span class="i0">I have worshipped a million lesser divinities—nature-gods,<br></span>
<span class="i4">man-gods, god-gods—throughout<br></span>
<span class="i4">the ages, hoping to be relieved of pain—have<br></span>
<span class="i4">they saved me?<br></span>
<span class="i0">I have believed in prophets, saviours, saints—have<br></span>
<span class="i4">they healed me?<br></span>
<span class="i0">I have listened to philosophers, scientists,<br></span>
<span class="i4">magicians—have they protected me?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Kings, statesmen, law-givers have boldly proclaimed<br></span>
<span class="i4">the gospel of peace and security—have<br></span>
<span class="i4">they not themselves plunged the<br></span>
<span class="i4">poisoned dagger into my heart?<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am old as Eternity—yet I feel not the burden<br></span>
<span class="i4">of eternal years;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_110">{110}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">I am young as the babe of to-day—yet I am wise<br></span>
<span class="i4">as all the hoary Bible-makers of all the races<br></span>
<span class="i4">of the earth.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am one—I am many; I am spirit, ghost, man,<br></span>
<span class="i4">animal, and tree: yet my hidden life flows<br></span>
<span class="i4">ever with passionate impetuosity towards<br></span>
<span class="i4">the distant future above the heads of<br></span>
<span class="i4">nations.<br></span>
<span class="i0">To me the least is not less than the greatest; in<br></span>
<span class="i4">all I am their sensitiveness to pain—the pain<br></span>
<span class="i4">of a perpetual new birth of cosmos or of<br></span>
<span class="i4">chaos.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am large, and my largeness moves me to face<br></span>
<span class="i4">great pain for the avoiding of great pain;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am strong, and my strength lies in discovering<br></span>
<span class="i4">the source of consolation even in the moment<br></span>
<span class="i4">of suffering from suffering itself;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am inured to pain—so that I delight in excitement<br></span>
<span class="i4">that brings pain and inflicts pain.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Who brought this pain upon me? Had it been<br></span>
<span class="i4">God-given, God would one day have taken<br></span>
<span class="i4">it away; has He taken it away?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Had it been the gift of Nature, I would have<br></span>
<span class="i4">revenged myself upon her; but I feel no<br></span>
<span class="i4">enmity to Nature—I desire that she be<br></span>
<span class="i4">endless, infinite, that I may ever conquer<br></span>
<span class="i4">her;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I desire to be charmed by her—yet to be her<br></span>
<span class="i4">master; I wonder, shall I ever wish to end<br></span>
<span class="i4">this play?<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_111">{111}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Deeming myself the mother of my pain, I seek<br></span>
<span class="i4">the aid of floods and earthquakes, war and<br></span>
<span class="i4">pestilence and famine, to bring destruction<br></span>
<span class="i4">on myself; but ever by a mysterious magic<br></span>
<span class="i4">I rise from my own ashes and live again;<br></span>
<span class="i4">and after my resurrection, sitting in the<br></span>
<span class="i4">dawn-light by the waveless ocean, Psyche<br></span>
<span class="i4">comes and whispers to my heart: “Not<br></span>
<span class="i4">thou, O sweet Humanity, art cause of thine<br></span>
<span class="i4">own pain!”<br></span>
<span class="i0">And I muse: If I be the father of my sufferings,<br></span>
<span class="i4">how can I desire to live again? How can I<br></span>
<span class="i4">inflict pain upon myself? How can I construct<br></span>
<span class="i4">machinery for my own torture?<br></span>
<span class="i0">I know that my nature is rooted in contradiction;<br></span>
<span class="i4">have I perhaps sought to grow at the cost<br></span>
<span class="i4">of happiness and peace?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Bright Powers in the heavens are watching over<br></span>
<span class="i4">my mysterious destiny. Have they lauded<br></span>
<span class="i4">me as good and true and beautiful? Have<br></span>
<span class="i4">they condemned me as bad and false and<br></span>
<span class="i4">ugly? Who will say whether I am developing<br></span>
<span class="i4">aright? Who will say whether the<br></span>
<span class="i4">daily use to which I am constrained to put<br></span>
<span class="i4">my life is not frustrating the Eternal Purpose?<br></span>
<span class="i0">I am left alone with my unforeseeing understanding<br></span>
<span class="i4">and my ever forward-springing<br></span>
<span class="i4">untamable energy.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_112">{112}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">My knowledge embraces not the whole reality.<br></span>
<span class="i4">Perchance my sensitiveness to pain has<br></span>
<span class="i4">sprung from my limited uncomprehending<br></span>
<span class="i4">understanding. True, in my own eyes I<br></span>
<span class="i4">grow from ugliness to beauty, from ignorance<br></span>
<span class="i4">to knowledge, from slavery to freedom, from<br></span>
<span class="i4">sin to holiness. I make progress in culture<br></span>
<span class="i4">and civilisation—but I rise to the zenith<br></span>
<span class="i4">only to descend to the nadir.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Henceforth I will seek new and inward space for<br></span>
<span class="i4">my progress. In the coming age I will<br></span>
<span class="i4">seek to bore a tunnel in the spirit, to find an<br></span>
<span class="i4">inner path to the Divinity of my Heart.<br></span>
<span class="i4">But I will not destroy the bridges which I<br></span>
<span class="i4">have built during the past ages, linking<br></span>
<span class="i4">this earth with the distant divinity of suns<br></span>
<span class="i4">and moons and stars.<br></span>
<span class="i0">I will be free, glorious, and immortal.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>The Voice ceases.</i><br></span>
<span class="i15"><i>Śrī Ānanda Āchārya.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">All this is rhythm.<br></span>
<span class="i0">May-fields, child-hearts, evening skies,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Grow corn and wisdom and stars<br></span>
<span class="i0">By the throb of rhythm;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And Muses from the Milky Way<br></span>
<span class="i0">Nightly visit<br></span>
<span class="i0">The sleeping poet’s downy pillow<br></span>
<span class="i0">By the law of rhythm;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And angels bring him faces<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_113">{113}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">Flushed with morning’s rose,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Tinted with even’s quiet,<br></span>
<span class="i0">By the sweet impulse of rhythm.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Wait, O soul!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Outside thy door, upon the green,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Heaven stands expectant,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Waiting to be ushered in<br></span>
<span class="i0">By Rhythm,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Just now—or perchance to-morrow.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Śrī Ānanda Āchārya.</i><br></span>
<span class="i15">From “Usarika.”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Friend, dwell thou<br></span>
<span class="i2">within my ruby-lotus heart of dreams;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Friend, see thyself<br></span>
<span class="i2">in the diamond mirror of my heart of hopes;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Friend, sport with me<br></span>
<span class="i2">in the garden-walks of my heart, fringed with everlastings;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Friend, sleep thou on the shore of the song-throated ocean of my heart;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Friend, shine in me<br></span>
<span class="i2">like sunlight in the heart of a rose-bud of jade.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i15"><i>Śrī Ānanda Āchārya.</i><br></span>
<span class="i15">From “Usarika.”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Thou art the rose,<br></span>
<span class="i2">I am the honey;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou drinkest the light<br></span>
<span class="i2">of the four heavens,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_114">{114}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">And my soul is suffused<br></span>
<span class="i2">with the rainbow of seven tints;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I give myself<br></span>
<span class="i2">to the bees<br></span>
<span class="i0">And become a song<br></span>
<span class="i2">on the wings of winds<br></span>
<span class="i2">that sing to the gods<br></span>
<span class="i2">and the fleecy clouds<br></span>
<span class="i2">and the sleeping children of Life.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Śrī Ānanda Āchārya.</i><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">From “Usarika” (Dawn-Rhythms).<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Snow-blossoms,<br></span>
<span class="i2">snow-blossoms,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Are<br></span>
<span class="i2">you alive?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In your heart<br></span>
<span class="i2">I see<br></span>
<span class="i2">the image<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">the heavens,<br></span>
<span class="i2">the disc<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">the sun,<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And<br></span>
<span class="i2">when clouds<br></span>
<span class="i2">veil<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_115">{115}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i2">the face<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">the sky<br></span>
<span class="i2">I see<br></span>
<span class="i2">your facets<br></span>
<span class="i2">tinted<br></span>
<span class="i2">with<br></span>
<span class="i2">the ink<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">dark sorrow.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Children of Varun,<br></span>
<span class="i2">sweet guests<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">late Autumn,<br></span>
<span class="i2">you too<br></span>
<span class="i2">hear<br></span>
<span class="i2">the whispers<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">Immortality.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Like<br></span>
<span class="i2">our village sons,<br></span>
<span class="i2">dwelling<br></span>
<span class="i2">in<br></span>
<span class="i2">lighted cottages<br></span>
<span class="i2">by<br></span>
<span class="i2">the gloom-canopied<br></span>
<span class="i2">graves<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_116">{116}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i2">their departed<br></span>
<span class="i2">ancestors.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Śrī Ānanda Āchārya.</i><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">From “Saki” (The Comrade).<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The<br></span>
<span class="i2">rose of eternity<br></span>
<span class="i2">is<br></span>
<span class="i2">my heart,<br></span>
<span class="i2">the<br></span>
<span class="i2">sun-gold honey<br></span>
<span class="i2">is<br></span>
<span class="i2">my love<br></span>
<span class="i2">for<br></span>
<span class="i2">my Saki,<br></span>
<span class="i2">the<br></span>
<span class="i2">honey-bees<br></span>
<span class="i2">are<br></span>
<span class="i2">my sighs and songs,<br></span>
<span class="i2">the<br></span>
<span class="i2">river<br></span>
<span class="i2">is<br></span>
<span class="i2">my feeling<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">life,<br></span>
<span class="i2">and<br></span>
<span class="i2">the light<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">my Saki’s<br></span>
<span class="i2">eyes<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_117">{117}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i2">is<br></span>
<span class="i2">the true life<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">the red rose.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What<br></span>
<span class="i2">grey dews<br></span>
<span class="i2">or<br></span>
<span class="i2">blind canker<br></span>
<span class="i2">can harm<br></span>
<span class="i2">this<br></span>
<span class="i2">ever-smiling<br></span>
<span class="i2">rose<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">my heart?<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Śrī Ānanda Āchārya.</i><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">From “Saki.”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The blue<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">Indra<br></span>
<span class="i2">is<br></span>
<span class="i2">thy laughter<br></span>
<span class="i2">frozen<br></span>
<span class="i2">into<br></span>
<span class="i2">the<br></span>
<span class="i2">sky-ocean<br></span>
<span class="i2">and<br></span>
<span class="i2">these stars<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_118">{118}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i2">and<br></span>
<span class="i2">this earth<br></span>
<span class="i2">are<br></span>
<span class="i2">frozen lilies<br></span>
<span class="i2">and<br></span>
<span class="i2">we<br></span>
<span class="i2">living creatures<br></span>
<span class="i2">are<br></span>
<span class="i2">frozen bees.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">O Saki,<br></span>
<span class="i2">laugh<br></span>
<span class="i2">no<br></span>
<span class="i2">more.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Śrī Ānanda Āchārya.</i><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">From “Saki.”<br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The shadow<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">a<br></span>
<span class="i2">flying bird<br></span>
<span class="i2">across<br></span>
<span class="i2">the<br></span>
<span class="i2">sun’s disc<br></span>
<span class="i2">fell<br></span>
<span class="i2">on<br></span>
<span class="i2">the<br></span>
<span class="i2">still floor<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">my morning-quiet<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_119">{119}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i2">cave<br></span>
<span class="i2">and<br></span>
<span class="i2">vanished—<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Like<br></span>
<span class="i2">the memory<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">one<br></span>
<span class="i2">who<br></span>
<span class="i2">passing<br></span>
<span class="i2">through<br></span>
<span class="i2">the<br></span>
<span class="i2">bright shade<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">my garden trees<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">early days<br></span>
<span class="i2">entered<br></span>
<span class="i2">into<br></span>
<span class="i2">the<br></span>
<span class="i2">deep shadows<br></span>
<span class="i2">of<br></span>
<span class="i2">another’s<br></span>
<span class="i2">garden trees.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Śrī Ānanda Āchārya.</i><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">From “Saki.”<br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_120">{120}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="LOVES_SAMADHI19"></a>LOVE’S <i>SAMĀDHI</i><a id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Ah, Love, I sink in the timeless sleep,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Sink in the timeless sleep;<br></span>
<span class="i0">One Image stands before my eyes,<br></span>
<span class="i2">And thrills my bosom’s deep:<br></span>
<span class="i0">One Vision bathes in radiant light<br></span>
<span class="i2">My spirit’s palace-halls;<br></span>
<span class="i0">All stir of hand, all throb of brain,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Quivers, and sinks, and falls.<br></span>
<span class="i0">My soul fares forth; no fetters now<br></span>
<span class="i2">Chain me to this world’s shore.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Sleep! I would sleep! In pity spare;<br></span>
<span class="i2">Let no man wake me more!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Nārāyan Vāman Tilak.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="A_CRADLE_SONG"></a>A CRADLE SONG</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Hush thee, hush thee, baby Christ,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Lord of all mankind,—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou the happy lullaby<br></span>
<span class="i2">Of my mind.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Hush thee, hush thee, Jesus, Lord,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Stay of all that art,—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou the happy lullaby<br></span>
<span class="i2">Of my heart.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_121">{121}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Hush thee, hush thee, home of peace,—<br></span>
<span class="i2">Lo! Love lying there!—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou the happy lullaby<br></span>
<span class="i2">Of my care.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Hush thee, hush thee, Soul of mine,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Setting all men free—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou the happy lullaby<br></span>
<span class="i2">Of the whole of me.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Nārāyan Vāman Tilak.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="THE_WAY_OF_POVERTY"></a>THE WAY OF POVERTY</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Thou hadst no servants to attend on Thee;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Then why this pomp of household state for me?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Coarse fare and scanty was Thy portion, Lord;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Then why for me this richly-furnished board?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Thou hadst not where to lay Thy head to rest;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Then why should I of mansions be possessed?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ah, hapless I! What is this tyranny?<br></span>
<span class="i0">How dost Thou laugh and make a mock of me!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Ah, take from me this burden that doth bow<br></span>
<span class="i0">My head! blest ocean of all love art Thou!<br></span>
<span class="i0">I speak in anger, Lord; yet, if Thou too<br></span>
<span class="i0">Reject my prayer, what can Thy servant do?<br></span>
<span class="i0">Saith Dāsa, Christ, upon Thy pallet-bed<br></span>
<span class="i0">Grant me a little space to lay my head.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Nārāyan Vāman Tilak.</i><br></span>
<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_122">{122}</a></span></div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="THE_LAST_PRAYER"></a>THE LAST PRAYER</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Lay me within Thy lap to rest;<br></span>
<span class="i2">Around my head Thine arm entwine;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Let me gaze up into Thy face,<br></span>
<span class="i2">O Father-Mother mine!<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">So let my spirit pass with joy,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Now at the last, O Tenderest!<br></span>
<span class="i0">Saith Dāsa, Grant Thy wayward child<br></span>
<span class="i2">This one, this last request.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Nārāyan Vāman Tilak.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="UNION_WITH_CHRIST"></a>UNION WITH CHRIST</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">As the moon and its beams are one,<br></span>
<span class="i2">So that I be one with Thee,<br></span>
<span class="i0">This is my prayer to Thee, my Lord,<br></span>
<span class="i2">This is this beggar’s plea.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I would snare Thee and hold Thee ever,<br></span>
<span class="i2">In loving wifely ways;<br></span>
<span class="i0">I give Thee a daughter’s welcome,<br></span>
<span class="i2">I give Thee a sister’s praise.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">As words and their meaning are linked,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Serving one purpose each,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Be Thou and I so knit, O Lord,<br></span>
<span class="i2">And through me breathe Thy speech.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_123">{123}</a></span><br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">O be my soul a mirror clear,<br></span>
<span class="i2">That I may see Thee there;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Dwell in my thought, my speech, my life,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Making them glad and fair.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Take Thou this body, O my Christ,<br></span>
<span class="i2">Dwell as its soul within;<br></span>
<span class="i0">To be an instant separate<br></span>
<span class="i2">I count a deadly sin.<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Nārāyan Vāman Tilak.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<h2><a id="PEACE"></a>PEACE</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">It is the hour of sunset, and the sky<br></span>
<span class="i0">Is robed in purple, as a lovely bride<br></span>
<span class="i0">With ruby lips and veil thrown half aside,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Waiting for her sweet lord with longing eye.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The air is fresh and fragrant, and the sea<br></span>
<span class="i0">In smiling joy its boundless bosom heaves,<br></span>
<span class="i0">With ringing music of the rising waves;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And far from here its weary whisper leaves<br></span>
<span class="i0">The broken echo of a world that raves;<br></span>
<span class="i0">Its murmur hushed in new-born notes of glee.<br></span>
<span class="idtts">. . . . . .<br></span>
<span class="i0">Lulled by the laughter of the sky and earth,<br></span>
<span class="i0">The heart forgets her sorrow and suspends<br></span>
<span class="i0">Her breath in silent rapture and descends<br></span>
<span class="i0">Upon the soul the vision of its birth.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Immeasurable waters! and the sky<br></span>
<span class="i0">Immeasurable! and this wondrous light<span class="pagenum"><a id="page_124">{124}</a></span><br></span>
<span class="i0">In rainbow smiles of India, all around—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Resting and rocking and rolling in delight,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And swelling with the mirth of many a sound<br></span>
<span class="i0">That fills the ocean’s ears unceasingly.<br></span>
<span class="idtts">. . . . . .<br></span>
<span class="i0">And now the mantle of approaching night<br></span>
<span class="i0">Falls gently o’er the drowsy eyes of day;<br></span>
<span class="i0">The roseate glow of evening melts away,<br></span>
<span class="i0">Softly beyond the western waves, to white.<br></span>
<span class="i0">Now o’er the earth a veil of mystery<br></span>
<span class="i0">In silver silence all around is spread;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And not a sound is heard or sight is seen<br></span>
<span class="i0">Except the lingering echoes hither led<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of boatmen’s shouts, and distant lights between<br></span>
<span class="i0">The mingling bosoms of the sky and sea.<br></span>
<span class="idtts">. . . . . .<br></span>
<span class="i0">The moon hath risen, and the stars appear,<br></span>
<span class="i0">And heaven is watching with the eyes of light;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And in my heart a newer hope is bright<br></span>
<span class="i0">With varied splendours of the atmosphere.<br></span>
<span class="i0">The mind is hushed and all its motions cease<br></span>
<span class="i0">Of wayward fancy and unquiet thought;<br></span>
<span class="i0">And in the happy island of the soul<br></span>
<span class="i0">Awakes a joy in radiance unforgot—<br></span>
<span class="i0">Which o’er the world’s tumultuous uncontrol<br></span>
<span class="i0">Doth smile, and softly whisper, “Here is Peace!”<br></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i9"><i>Nanikram Vasanmal Thadani.</i><br></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="footnotes"><p class="cb">FOOTNOTES:</p>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The new leaves are red, <i>are</i> the rosy kisses. Also,
<i>palas</i> and pomegranate both have red blossoms.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> This poem deliberately takes off from the loveliest of all
Bengali popular songs, Ramprasad’s “This day will surely pass, this day
will pass” (see <i>Bengali Religious Lyrics</i>, Thompson and Spencer, Oxford
University Press).</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> India has six seasons to our four.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Urvasi, in older (<i>i.e.</i> Sanskrit) mythology, is a famous
courtesan and dancing-girl at the court of Indra, King of the Gods. Her
adventures were many; she was often sent to lure sages aside from their
devotions, lest they obtained super-divine powers and threatened the
dominion of the Gods (see stanza 4). But in Tagore’s poem she is very
much more than her legendary character. The poem is a tangle—Indian
mythology, modern science, European romance. She is the cosmic spirit of
life, in the mazes of its eternal dance; she is Beauty dissociated from
all human relationships; she is that world-enchanting Love which (though
not in Dante’s sense) “moves the sun and other stars,” is Lucretius’s
<i>hominum divumque voluptas, Alma Venus</i>, is Swinburne’s “perilous
goddess,” “sea-foam-born.”
</p><p>
I have adopted a quasi-metrical form which I hope will indicate the
general outline of the stanza in which this magnificent ode is written.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> When the Gods churned the Ocean, to recover the lost nectar
of immortality, Urvasi first appeared, one of many good and bad things
that came to light. With the nectar came out poison, which threatened
the life of all creatures, till Siva drank it to save the worlds. Tagore
has invented Urvasi’s responsibility for the nectar and poison being
brought forth; at any rate, I know of no other authority for line 4 of
this stanza.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> A jasmine.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> In Sanskrit mythology, heaven, the atmosphere, and earth;
in later mythology, generally heaven, earth, and the underworld.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> In Indian mythology, there are Mounts of Sunrise and
Sunsetting.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> From the <i>Mādhabī</i>.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Sanskrit Urvasī.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <i>I.e.</i> the <i>vīnā</i>, the lute.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> From the <i>Kanyādhūp</i>.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> From the <i>Patralekha</i>.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> From the <i>Patralekha</i>.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> “Spring fifth” is the fifth day of the light fortnight of
the month of Māgh, when Sarasvati, the goddess of letters and wisdom,
who loves the <i>vīnā</i>, lute, is worshipped. The month of Māgh corresponds
to January-February.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> I.e. the goddess who carries the <i>vīnā</i>, or lute, in her
hand.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The thousand-headed snake of Heaven.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Seli</i>, or the small round string made of black wool that
Guru Nanak used to wear at times.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>Samādhi</i> is the mystic’s “ecstasy,” in which all
consciousness of the material world is lost and the soul is face to face
with the Real.</p></div>
</div>
<hr class="full">
<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74751 ***</div>
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