Sandhya | Page 8

purple feet?To dance and swim?Through irridescent undulatings.?Dusk descends;?Mauve cloudlets--?Dying butterflies--?Flit and fly and die?In the opalescent ocean of mist?That grows dark and still,?Kisses away the last gold?From the brow of the hills;?Till the coral crescent?With its wand of breeze?Makes silver ripple-music?On the pool's shadow-laden deeps.
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SANATAN
(THE ABSOLUTE)[3]
Our hopes that fail?Are but truths that set?To illumine other spirits on their pathway;?As our joys that come true?Are their far-off dreams,?That through the cadence of our life?Ring out their pent-up tunes.?Whatever dies--needs must live,?Whatever breathes doth die too;?But above death and life?Shines that High Light?Where all find rest,?Yet endlessly move.
[Footnote 3: The word _absolute_ is the synonym for the Sanskrit word Sanatan, meaning _Eternal and Immutable Truth_.]
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COMING OF THE FOG
Killing the light,?Blurring the stars,?Marring the breeze--?Nature's many-stringed harp--
It comes?Silently, sinisterly,?Over the land, over the sea,?Spreading its beggar-raiment of brown.
Without stop, without sound,?Over the valley?Like a great serpent of silence?Coiling around the heart of sound.
A damp insidiousness?Creeps into the night;?A drab numbness sets in?Dripping in lugubrious drops?From the haggard fingers?Of the autumn trees.
It strangles the last sound,?It devours the last light,?Trembles in fear?To see its own visage;
It moves on, on, and around,?Ceaselessly, untiringly,?Till the black night is drowned?In an abyss of brown.
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In love's afterglow, full of stars,?Those lilies of the river of night,?Sing no song, dear, speak no word.
The white noontide has ebbed into gold;?Shores-breaking seas cease to roar;?Lo! the moonrise of our soul.
Hardly a kiss, or the shadow of a caress;?No decking the hour with the jasmines of touch;?But a rose-petal shivering in exquisite agony--our love.
The weary sunset has grown wearier;?A vague lassitude encircles us twain,?As separation builds its pathway of tears.
Cease weeping, yet the saffron light lingers;?The stars throb in nebulous lustre,?As our hearts to the music of desire.
What matters if winter be nigh??We sang summer to sleep,?And autumn on its bed of leaves.
Now comes the hour of parting for us,?As the last light flickers and fades;?Even love's afterglow dying, and is dead.
Alas! thou art gone, as are the hours of day;?The hard gem-burning stars do not set! Oh,?In what dark, in what forest roamest thou?
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THE END
Art thou about me?Amid falling leaves?And autumn's circling winds?When the golden shadows?Grow russet and rosy?And the purple sunset sets fire to the sky??Art thou the breath?That burns my being?When cold feel my limbs in terror, and awe??Who art thou? My love??Stranger in a strange garb!?Far and farther to be nearer to my heart!?Why make spring-flames leap?From passion's autumn leaves??Why this urge through fatigue?When time falls fast asleep?Under the shadow of its grave--?The winter ice??Yet, and yet?The circling winds?Repeat passionate speech,?The sunset burns,?As my soul?In desire's golden heat,?Though night be not far?Shadows creep near?With chilling breath and clutching hands?To pluck?To destroy?The flowers of yielding from your heart:?Powerless, fear-stricken;?I tremble, I stagger, I fall?Into oblivion's pit?As time creeps?Into winter's grave?Silent, empty, white.
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THE CONFLUENCE
Tears of Ages come in a stream,?Sighs flow in from Life's hoary height,?Souls of Sorrow bring their gleam?Of a light that is but a moan, not a sight.
The gray waves of the Sea of Death?Congeal under the cold Sun of Suffering,?While Time, playing the flute of Fate,?Charms them, snake-like, and doth bring.
Out of a Cave, beyond Lights and Shades?Present's storm,--made stormier by Future's promises,-- To mingle in the Ocean of Death?Like Sleep, yielding to Dream's caresses.
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In the deeps of Dream?O'er the pool of Sleep?A lone star her face?Seeking, with song-kindled eyes?Her Isle of Rest.
Across the dusky hills?The first flush of waking?Unfurls its silver banner?To signal the Isle for her:?She vanishes, as before, into the fading Night.
Thus the Eye of Life?Searches for the home of Peace?Night after night:?And when the sun of Death rises?It flees,--it loves its own night.
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TO
LEO B. MIHAN
Few notes out of the coffer of sound,?An image from the gallery of Nature,?An hour from the infinity of Time,--?Out of these, blessed creature,?Createst thou the world of endless rhyme!
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CHOPIN'S FUNERAL MARCH
The keyboard black and white;?Shadow-Light the Evening's scale;?Half silent the voice of thy singing.?Quiver the notes in pain;?Exquisite, sad, the melody at thy touch;?Like the silver arrow of Desire?Piercing the Soul's golden heart.
The room is lost in dark.?The ivory keys, white fringe?Of a music long since mute;?Yet, in the black night?Tremble and toss notes?Unheard, undreamt,--like sleep?Sleepless, and waking full of smart.
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In the golden afterglow you lay,?When the emerald moon?Made thin silver fog-veils?For the bride of night,?Whose saffron-sandled feet?Walked the foam-strewn floor of the sea.?In my arms you listened?To words of love?Poured by the infinite heaven of my heart,?Echoed by the endless symphony of the sky.?Your silent gaze,?Deeper than the song of the sea,?Farther than the moon,?Nearer than your own heart-beat,?Asked mine for speech.?"What can my love say?At this sad sacred hour?"?Hour of parting this!?Love's ever-feared moment,?Longing's much-dreaded end,?Yet no voice sorrows in our being,?No woe dims the moon-face tonight.?Between the sheltering dunes and fading light?On an a?rial couch lying,?Adorned in kiss-woven garments of nudity?Our spirits garlanded with