Sandhya | Page 6

mist puts out the rose-red moon from its deep.
Pale gleams the lighthouse light;
No warring waves break the peace
of sleep tonight
Nor a hungry wind shrieks in pain from the lea.
Under her heavy veil 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