Sandhya | Page 8

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.]
20
COLOR-HARMONIES
Violet hills,
Rosy mist,
Limpid pool,
Golden notes from sunset's
lute
For shadows
Draped in green
With 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.

21
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_.]
22
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.
23
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?
24
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.
25
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.
26
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.
27
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!
28
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