Sandhya | Page 7

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 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!
12
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!
14
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.
15
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.
19
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