Sandhya | Page 7

like lightning;?Through the clouds of the roar of waves:?It is not from the rocks, nor from the sea;?Ah! it is the prayer of a mightier ocean--Humanity!
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The same air that you breathe?Is the air that caresses my sky;?The sunlight that lingers on your hair and lips?Sets fire to the pathway of my life;?And the call of nature's numberless birds?But reflects in world's mirror the music of our heart's singing-- Melody made of sweet agonies,?Exquisite joys poured from pitchers of pain,?As this summer's heat?From the ever-burning heart of heaven.?Not heaven alone;?The earth, the air, flowers, and leaves?Filled with passion that knows no slaking,?Yet tranquil like sleep's dream-billowed sea.?More than dream-billowed sea this love that I bring,?Its boistrous waves seek the firmament of your yielding; While your heart-beats' arrows seek to slay my heart a'beating, As I inhale the fragrance of your breath and hair;?And pour the perfume of my soul?On your sun-bathed feet.
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Why this return??Why this sunlight?When all seemed without sun?
Whence this call??I cannot tell,?Yet its mighty thralls.
Hold me, haunt me?Hour after hour,?With its name of thee.
All seems ended,?The last light lost?In the house of the dead.
Yet with time's tide?Rises thy face,?My heart, my soul, my bride.
Though poureth the rain,?And sorrow clouds my sky,?Yet not mine the pain.
What I hear?I can not tell,?And what I fear,
Will not endure:?But thou returnest,?O serene, O silent, O pure!
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By the verge of the woodland,?Where purling brooks loosen their brown tresses,?Where the music of the breeze?Is played on viols of the vines and trees,?Thy soft words I hear?Like songs from enchantment's strings.?Ah, vanishing moments of ecstacy!?Far-fleeing only to be nearer to my soul,?Rest, rest awhile on the hillside of my echoing!?Pour on it the sweet rain of thy words' melody?Till they mingle and drown my tears?Into thy kisses' passion-swept sea.
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THE DREAM OF HIS SOUL
The Dream of his Soul, in flesh and blood--?Not to possess, but only to see--?Was given him, for an hour:?Ah, fool, he lingered longer,--?The Dream died like the shadow of a Star!
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THE EURASIAN
Indignity your part today,?Suffering the guerdon of the gods;?No country to claim your own,?Nowhere to lay your head.?The ocean of ignorance separates us;?The snow-storm of commerce blinds the eye;?Yet you must stand true,?Bridge of blood and flesh between the West and East.?In ages to come, when?Man will love his brother,?Irrespective of birth and breed;?In the pantheon of the future, yours the immortal seat. Son of man, you are brother!?Bearer of the cross of God!?Your destiny the lodestar of our epoch,?Your life our rood-littered road of the Lord.?Arise, awake, halt not?Till the goal is reached;?Raise high the Host of freedom?Blare the trumpet of light.?"Suffer you, for the world to rejoice";?"Die" so they "can live";?Live that you may bring the light?To the meeting place of the West and East.
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In the perfumed shrine of love,?Where burns memory's exhaustless incense?From the irridescent thurible of hope,?On the altar and couch of my heart?Rest thy limbs, O, god of my soul.?Drink of the unquenchable draught of caresses;?Tear the flowers of my dreams and fancies;?Scatter the sacred petals of my passion?To the four winds of thy rejoicing.
Thy rejoicing, that one festival of the High Gods,?Where no offering that I bring ever be too dear,?Where no soul burnt in the fire of senses can perish;?Where no suffering fails to be mother and daughter of joy. Take all, great God among these Gods:?The pearl of my woman-soul buried in deeps of passion,?The coral-wreath from the ocean of my bleeding heart;?And ravish with exquisite merciless touch?The one star in my heaven that has led thee hither--?My life's eternity in this worship of an hour.
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THE INFIRM BEGGAR SINGS
Broken and bruised by the hand of Fate,?Dark night, my staff,?Leaning on its shadowy strength I walk?Toward thee, my God.?Thy crescent my e'er-present friend;?Thy wind, thy voice,?Calls me to go on without end?To thy star that my soul hath seen.?The hour is black, my road unbuilt;?My beggar's song?I cannot sing; yet, thou knowest,?For thy love I long!?I come, O Lord! broken and battered?To thy world where sorrow is not.
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Kiss, my love, kiss?My burning, breaking being;?So when cold death?Will put out the light?In some wilderness?Of far forsaken life?Might each kiss blossom?Into a lotus and a Shephali.[2]?And in the desolate hours?Of loneliness of traveling?In the dusk of despair?One petal of these?Will cheer the vagrant souls?That tread the pathway?Of love's forsaking.?Or, when Death will sow?This Soul of mine?On the lake-shore of sorrow,?Like a weeping willow I will spring,?And with my green tresses?And bending body?Shall shelter secrecy-seeking lovers?That love for an hour,?As our twin hearts today.?Kiss then, with kisses of flame;?Touch me with rosy caresses;?Bury this, my hope, my dream,?And thy all-conquering love of me;?So the kiss-flowers may each be a dream!?May my willow be the vision of Eternal Spring.
[Footnote 2: Flowers full of perfume, abounding in Lower Bengal, India.]
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COLOR-HARMONIES
Violet hills,?Rosy mist,?Limpid pool,?Golden notes from sunset's lute?For shadows?Draped in green?With