Sandhya | Page 9

flaming wings?Cross this ocean of parting?Unto that far island of Cythera?Where only love reigns?In eternal majesty.
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HENRIK IBSEN
Lone as the lone north star,?Stern as the rocks that guard the sanctity of his home, Pure as the white snow of his land,?And beauteous his visions like the fjords?At each turn of the mariner's helm.
The lofty glaciers engage his eyes,?As life's height the sight of his mind;?And his Imagination, expansive as the sea,?Tries to push the boundary-line of the sky, his Soul,?Further and further, where a new North Star?Awaits his exploring eye.
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AFTER HEARING "MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME"
I know not whose the words,?Nor the maker of their music;?In my sorrow-laden heart?The aroma of its pathetic art?Like the soothing breath of dream.
Joy borrows its charm from sorrow;?Sorrow feverish with the color of joy;?An opaque crystal, a stone on life's string?Made of music that doth ring?As the stars on the lyre of night.
A pain it is, made perfect;?A call made clear by the voice of peace;?A silver stream of song?Darkened, yet floweth on and on?Between black banks of memory, into the Soul's white home.
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THE COMING OF THE TIDE OF NIGHT
Pale this twilight-face,?Shade-ridden the horizon-light;?The forest, a green-gold vision of grace?In its frame of lavender mist.
No rose-leaf washed in moonlight;?No vine on vermilion walls;?Pale sunlight fading into night,?Dark tunes, the music of the hour.
No death, nor life is ours, here;?But the vast vague sea of black?Sounded by star-mariners?Seeking the Infinite's track.
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DEAD LOVE
Pour no blood on ashes, brother,?That is not the way;?Better say nothing,?Blood is no life-giver;?It makes death look so gay.
Dead life, or dead love?Need no blood at all.?No trumpet's call can?Bring back what you lived, and strove:?The ashes know no thrall!
Why cry for a colored glass?That for jewel you took;?The magic--the dream--?All returning to dust and grass,?Not a day love your soul forsook.
At last, you have known it,?That is more than they do.?Be not afraid, O friend,?Alone, alas, alone! you have loved and lived it,?Pour no blood on the ashes, for blood can not turn into dew.
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It is the same twilight, dear,?The hour of love and tear?When in raiments of shadows?Fancies, fears, hopes, and sorrows?Tread the path of sunset,?While like barks of jet?Float the clouds from east to west.
I think of thee, my darling,?As in my heart strange chords ring?Out melodies of many memories,?And half-forgotten reveries?Telling of this or that scene,?That is and has been?Trod by thee, Queen of queens.
My dreams of thee are ceaseless,?As my love of thee is endless;?Whether it be sunset or sunrise,?Hour of star-song, or bird-cries?It is of thee that I dream,?In the heart of my soul's stream?That flows to thy feet, my darling.
Dark grows both east and west;?Flower-heads droop into rest,?As I seek to lay my heart and loving?On thy star-white breast, my darling,?And sink into that pool of sleep?That rises from thy singing's deep,?While all are silent, as my desires near thee, my Queen.
What peace thy presence breathes!?What serenity weaves its wreathes!?What myriad wonders touch hands?Across many seas, from many lands,?When a thought of thee?Heralds thy coming to me?Between palpitating desires, and fragrant dreams.
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WEARINESS
Weariness the tune of this evening melody,?Pain the lute to which I sing;?Ah! goddess, why this gray measure?In thy starry harmony?
The white conch[4] of the half-moon?Silent as though all worship's ceased,?No incense-perfume from the forest censer?The breeze brings; all still, like torrid noon.
I row in a black bark on a copper-colored sea,?The sun fades like a golden bubble in its deep;?Weariness the chart that I hold in my hand,?Weariness the tune of this evening melody.
[Footnote 4: In a Hindu temple conch shells are blown during or at the close of a worship.]
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A call, not a song;?A command, not a prayer;?No mellowing moonlight, but dawn,?Frail, fanciful, and fair?In the east of my dream and desire.?At the portal of unending desire,?Draped in diaphanous dreams,?With a whispered word of fire?That quivers and gleams?Through the clouds of my longing.?Longings poignant with pains and tears?Enfold, and fill my soul?That aches with hopes and fears?As thy chariot wheels' roll?Sets fire with torches of gold?To my words, my silences, my singing,?And to this black pyre of my life?To take my being on the wings of thy embracing?To sail away, far away from man's hate and strife?Where only love reigns on its throne of unending light.
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REMORSE
Gently descending dark--?Curtain of silence?From heaven to earth;
The drama of day over,?Empty the seats of life,?Dead the twilight fire.
Curtains of black?Woven from threads of purple?By the hands of a star,
That lone soul weeping?Over the dead hours?Laid by mute time in the eternal's grave.
In the night of my soul?Not even a ray,?Nor a mourner present;
But a deep dark hollow?Where no fate weeps?Even fear is afraid to tread:
Fear-forsaken, hollow within hollow,?Even silence flees from me--?O, the pity of it!
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POET
To distil a few golden drops of song?Through the gloom of this hour;?To filter true emotions?Through passion's burning fire?When the sun bubble-like fades in