Sandhya | Page 6

of black?A languid sea sluggishly flows?To some far land of forsaken dreams.
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"O, OLD! O, NEW!"[1]
Who are you??Why make me wait?From the hour of dew?Till another sunset??Why do I look?For your coming??Listen to the weeping brook?That might bring?To my lonely shore?A word from you.?Ah, nothing! not a leaf's tremor!?O, old! O, longed for new!?Who are you? I ask;?Know not why I seek?From day to dusk?Without waking or sleep,--?No sleep! no waking!?A dreaming, a longing;?Not knowing, yet seeking,?For your coming waiting--?O, spring-born!?O, autumn-clad!?O, soul's new morn!?O, old! O, glad!?So glad, so young!?O, unseen, unknown,?O, fugitive vision!?O, eternal moan?In my heart--
O, tearful Soul of laughter,?Untouched, unhurt,?O, sweet! O, bitter!?My born yet unborn,?Shadow not fallen?O, undawning morn--?O, message unbroken.?Why, how, when??I wait, wait for you,?O embrace of earth and heaven;?O, Old! O, New!
[Footnote 1: "O, Old! O, New!" is the cry of a "Poáti," _e. g._, a mother's cry to her unborn child. "Poáti" has no precise English synonym.]
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The far away called her--?A pilgrim on the hope-lit bark of youth,?A woman, a child, a soul?On an argosy for the lands of south.
It called her in her dreams;?Her waking into a deeper dream grew;?The flute of the distant?Played ceaselessly the music of the new.
With words of fire it called her,?Beyond the bourne of her days?To a silent sea of joy?Washed by unending twilight-rays.
It called her at dawn?When night shed the star-jewels from her hair;?It called her at sunset?When the moon mutely ascended the heaven's stair.
It called her without ceasing--?Hour after hour but a calling,?Till "Come, come, come!"?At her soul's door kept repeating:
Come, come, come!--in?Her word, her music, her song;?Far away, near, far again?Heedless of nightfall and dawn.
It called, it cried, it prayed,?Till She, the deity, made answer?Through youth, through age, through death?To her own far away's receding star.
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LASSITUDE
Ah! to be able to sing,?To sorrow in melody;?To string with silver?Sorrow's dark harp!
Or, mount every thorn?Crowning life's brow?With lustrous stars--?Those tears of the sky.
Rolling down its face?When night's hand puts?Darkness's crown on its head?As twilight dies.
None of these, for my soul;?Only to weep is given to me,?To nourish my heart's crop?For the scythe of barrenness to reap.
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Ah! pale cool lips that burn,?Body that yields, though unyielding,?Oh, moon with the heat of the sun!?Flashing out a million lights?To cleave into nothing the endless firmament of my being. Take all; my soul's mistress! heart's queen,?The flaming fancies of my dream-tortured night?The intoxicating fruits of my day dream,?The fiery lotus of my senses' delight?That rises from the abyss of my life.?The abysmal heaven of love and living?Now bruised, burnt, torn and thrown?To the winds of thy ravishing rejoicing?Whose inarticulate words of delight and moan?Make the ever-yielding music of my soul.
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FORLORN
In the star-blurred hours of the night?When the cloud-dams stay the flow of winds,?Not even the shadow of a meteor moves,?As in the watch-tower of love I sit;?Through the casement of hope look for thy coming?Along the moss-grown path of stones--?Those agonies that time has built on my soul--?By the unfathomable lake of my tears?Shed when even prayers had failed?To bring thy returning.?Come, destroyer of my peace and sleep,?Plunderer of lights of my days!?Enigma on the scroll of my fate?Before the lightnings fired my tower?And thunders crashed in my life's sky.?Only send the echo of thy footfalls--?The ring of thy song,?And a star--reflection of thy smile--?Those million suns in the firmament of my dawn.
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AFTER A BENGALI SONG
In the forest of my being the voice of your lute;?In the depth of my heart the pearl of your tear;?In the temple of my soul chimes the bell of your love.
The fire of dawn, shadow of eve,?Life's sorrow, and death's mute-enchanting peace?Steal away silently, fearfully, at thy flute's music.
O, frail, faint call which I seek to echo!?O, breath of love laden with the aroma of my soul!?Why seek I ever without, O guest at my door?
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MOONRISE
A soft light mantle of rose wear the brown hills?As they look down on the valley where the rills?Spin their long silver embroideries?For the fringe of spring's greenéd draperies.
The cloud-banks recede with the fading breeze,?The warblers fall into silence in the trees?To listen to many-colored dream-melodies?That the mute stars make on sleep's endless seas.
The last light flickers out of the sky,?Shadows with golden feet o'er the green valley hie;?The silver rills trill like warblers from earth's deeps As the moon, the sun of another dawn, heavenward leaps.
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AT VENTURA, CALIFORNIA
The moon rises and washes the brine with silver;?The dunes like white elephants restfully asleep after the chase; And the fog comes to bring the moon its veil of shades. The waves stretch their phosphorescent arms?To embrace the night,?The wind like a wounded gull beats its wings?Over the land, over the sea, into the fog-vested intangibility.
Like a thousand trumpets the breakers?Proclaim the empiry of night,?The rocky caverns send back echoes?Like homage from vassals near and far;?A faint cry seemeth to flash