The Nuts of Knowledge | Page 4

the ring of twilight gleams?Round the sanctuary wrought,?Whispers haunt me--in my dreams?We are one yet know it not.
Some for beauty follow long?Flying traces; some there be?Seek thee only for a song:?I to lose myself in thee.
KRISHNA
'I am Beauty itself among beautiful things.'
Bhagavad-Gita
The East was crowned with snow-cold bloom?And hung with veils of pearly fleece:?They died away into the gloom,?Vistas of peace--and deeper peace.
And earth and air and wave and fire?In awe and breathless silence stood;?For One who passed into their choir?Linked them in mystic brotherhood.
Twilight of amethyst, amid?Thy few strange stars that lit the heights,?Where was the secret spirit hid??Where was Thy place, O Light of Lights?
The flame of Beauty far in space--?Where rose the fire: in thee? in me??Which bowed the elemental race?To adoration silently?
SYMBOLISM
Now when the spirit in us wakes and broods,?Filled with home yearnings, drowsily it flings?From its deep heart high dreams and mystic moods,?Mixed with the memory of the loved earth things;?Clothing the vast with a familiar face;?Reaching its right hand forth to greet the starry race.
Wondrously near and clear the great warm fires?Stare from the blue; so shows the cottage light?To the field labourer whose heart desires?The old folk by the nook, the welcome bright?From the house-wife long parted from at dawn--?So the star villages in God's great depths withdrawn.
Nearer to Thee, not by delusion led,?Though there no house fires burn nor bright eyes gaze,?We rise, but by the symbol charioted,?Through loved things rising up to Love's own ways?By these the soul unto the vast has wings?And sets the seal celestial on all mortal things.
SUNG ON A BY-WAY
What of all the will to do??It has vanished long ago,?For a dream-shaft pierced it through?From the Unknown Archer's bow.
What of all the soul to think??Some one offered it a cup?Filled with a diviner drink,?And the flame has burned it up.
What of all the hope to climb??Only in the self we grope?To the misty end of time:?Truth has put an end to hope.
What of all the heart to love??Sadder than for will or soul,?No light lured it on above;?Love has found itself the whole.
THE HUNTER
Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by,?And night, the dark blue hunter, followed fast:?Ceaseless pursuit and flight were in the sky,?But the long chase had ceased for us at last.
We watched together while the driven fawn?Hid in the golden thicket of the day:?We from whose hearts pursuit and flight were gone?Knew on the hunter's breast her refuge lay.
THE VISION OF LOVE
The twilight fleeted away in pearl on the stream,?And night, like a diamond dome, stood still in our dream. Your eyes like burnished stones or as stars were bright With the sudden vision that made us one with the night.
We loved in infinite spaces, forgetting here?The breasts that were lit with life and the lips so near; Till the wizard willows waved in the wind and drew?Me away from the fulness of love and down to you.
Our love was so vast that it filled the heavens up:?But the soft white form I held was an empty cup,?When the willows called me back to earth with their sigh, And we moved as shades through the deep that was you and I.
A CALL OF THE SIDHE
Tarry thou yet, late lingerer in the twilight's glory:?Gay are the hills with song: earth's faery children leave More dim abodes to roam the primrose-hearted eve,?Opening their glimmering lips to breathe some wondrous story. Hush, not a whisper! Let your heart alone go dreaming.?Dream unto dream may pass: deep in the heart alone?Murmurs the Mighty One his solemn undertone.?Canst thou not see adown the silver cloudland streaming Rivers of faery light, dewdrop on dewdrop falling,?Starfire of silver flames, lighting the dark beneath??And what enraptured hosts burn on the dusky heath!?Come thou away with them, for Heaven to Earth is calling. These are Earth's voice--her answer--spirits thronging. Come to the Land of Youth: the trees grown heavy there?Drop on the purple wave the starry fruit they bear.?Drink: the immortal waters quench the spirit's longing. Art thou not now, bright one, all sorrow past, in elation, Made young with joy, grown brother-hearted with the vast, Whither thy spirit wending flits the dim stars past?Unto the Light of Lights in burning adoration.
JANUS
Image of beauty, when I gaze on thee,?Trembling I waken to a mystery,?How through one door we go to life or death?By spirit kindled or the sensual breath.
Image of beauty, when my way I go;?No single joy or sorrow do I know:?Elate for freedom leaps the starry power,?The life which passes mourns its wasted hour.
And, ah, to think how thin the veil that lies?Between the pain of hell and paradise!?Where the cool grass my aching head embowers?God sings the lovely carol of the flowers.
THE GREY EROS
We are desert leagues apart;?Time is misty ages now?Since the warmth of heart to heart?Chased the shadows from