Golden Gleanings

Kama O desolations vast, O seas of space Unpeopled, realms of an unfertile light, Grow multitudinous with living forms, Enamoured of desire! I send My breath Into the heart of being, and the storm Of sweet attraction shall break up its calm With quivering passionate intensity And silence change to a melodious cry, And all the world be rose. Out of My heart Suns shall flame up into the listless voi...

On the Mountains Immense retreats of silence and of gloom, Hills of a sterile grandeur, rocks that sublime In bareness seek the blue sky’s infinite room With their coeval snows untouched by Time! I seek your solemn spaces! Let me at last Forgotten of thought through days immemorable Voiceless and needless keep your refuge vast, Growing into the peace in which I dwell. For like that Soul unmade you...

Suddenly Out from the Wonderful East Suddenly out from the wonderful East like a woman exulting Dawn stepped forth with a smile on her lips, and the glory of morning Hovered over the hills; then sweet grew air with the breezes, Sweet and keen as a wild swift virgin; the wind walked blithely, Low was the voice of the leaves as they rustled and talked with the river, Ganges, the sacred river. Down f...

To the Ganges Hearken, Ganges, hearken, thou that sweepest golden to the sea, Hearken, Mother, to my voice. From the feet of Hari with thy waters pure thou leapest free, Waters colder-pure than ice. On Himaloy’s grandiose summits upright in his cirque of stones Shiva sits in breathless air, Where the outcast seeks his refuge, where the demon army moans, Ganges erring through his hair. Down the sno...

Vision Who art thou that roamest Over mountains dim In the haunts of evening, Sister of the gleam! Whiter than the jasmines, Roses dream of thee; Softly with the violets How thine eyes agree! As thy raven tresses Night is not so black, From thy moonbright shoulders Floating dimly back. Feet upon the hilltops, Lilies of delight, With their far-off radiance Tinge the evening bright. In the vesper ca...

The Sea at Night The grey sea creeps half-visible, half-hushed, And grasps with its innumerable hands These silent walls. I see beyond a rough Glimmering infinity, I feel the wash And hear the sibilation of the waves That whisper to each other as they push To shoreward side by side,—long lines and dim Of movement flecked with quivering spots of foam, The quiet welter of a shifting world. Read Onli...

The Vedantin's Prayer Spirit Supreme Who musest in the silence of the heart, Eternal gleam, Thou only Art! Ah, wherefore with this darkness am I veiled, My sunlit part By clouds assailed? Why am I thus disfigured by desire, Distracted, haled, Scorched by the fire Of fitful passions, from thy peace out-thrust Into the gyre Of every gust? Betrayed to grief, o’ertaken with dismay, Surprised by lu...

Rebirth Not soon is God’s delight in us completed, Nor with one life we end; Termlessly in us are our spirits seated, A termless joy intend. Our souls and heaven are of an equal stature And have a dateless birth; The unending seed, the infinite mould of Nature, They were not made on earth, Nor to the earth do they bequeath their ashes, But in themselves they last. An endless future brims beneath t...

Parabrahman These wanderings of the suns, these stars at play In the due measure that they chose of old, Nor only these, but all the immense array Of objects that long Time, far Space can hold, Are divine moments. They are thoughts that form, They are vision in the Self of things august And therefore grandly real. Rule and norm Are processes that they themselves adjust. The Self of things is not t...

God Thou who pervadest all the worlds below, Yet sitst above, Master of all who work and rule and know, Servant of Love! Thou who disdainest not the worm to be Nor even the clod, Therefore we know by that humility That thou art God. Read Online: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/god

The Fear of Death Death wanders through our lives at will, sweet Death Is busy with each intake of our breath. Why do you fear her? Lo, her laughing face All rosy with the light of jocund grace! A kind and lovely maiden culling flowers In a sweet garden fresh with vernal showers, This is the thing you fear, young portress bright Who opens to our souls the worlds of light. Is it because the twisted...

Seasons Day and night begin, you tell me, When the sun may choose to set or rise. Well, it may be; but for me their changing Is determined only by her eyes. Summer, spring, the fruitless winter Hinge, you say, upon the heavenly sun? Oh, but I have known a yearlong winter! Spring was by her careless smiles begun. Read Online: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/seasons

A Child's Imagination O thou golden image, Miniature of bliss, Speaking sweetly, speaking meetly! Every word deserves a kiss. Strange, remote and splendid Childhood’s fancy pure Thrills to thoughts we cannot fathom, Quick felicities obscure. When the eyes grow solemn Laughter fades away, Nature of her mighty childhood Recollects the Titan play; Woodlands touched by sunlight Where the elves abo...

Appeal Thy youth is but a noon, of night take heed,— A noon that is a fragment of a day, And the swift eve all sweet things bears away, All sweet things and all bitter, rose and weed. For others’ bliss who lives, he lives indeed. But thou art pitiful and ruth shouldst know. I bid thee trifle not with fatal love, But save our pride and dear one, O my dove, And heaven and earth and the nether world...

Life and Death Life, death,—death, life; the words have led for ages Our thought and consciousness and firmly seemed Two opposites; but now long-hidden pages Are opened, liberating truths undreamed. Life only is, or death is life disguised,— Life a short death until by life we are surprised. Read Online : https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/life-and-death

The Triumph-Song of Trishuncou I shall not die. Although this body, when the spirit tires Of its cramped residence, shall feed the fires, My house consumes, not I. Leaving that case I find out ample and ethereal room. My spirit shall avoid the hungry tomb, Deceiving death’s embrace. Night shall contain The sun in its cold depths; Time too must cease; The stars that labour shall have their release....

Karma (Radha's Complaint) Love, but my words are vain as air! In my sweet joyous youth, a heart untried, Thou tookst me in Love’s sudden snare, Thou wouldst not let me in my home abide. And now I have nought else to try, But I will make my soul one strong desire And into Ocean leaping die: So shall my heart be cooled of all its fire. Die and be born to life again As Nanda’s son, the joy of Bra...

Revelation Someone leaping from the rocks Past me ran with wind-blown locks Like a startled bright surmise Visible to mortal eyes,— Just a cheek of frightened rose That with sudden beauty glows, Just a footstep like the wind And a hurried glance behind, And then nothing,—as a thought Escapes the mind ere it is caught. Someone of the heavenly rout From behind the veil ran out. Read Online: https://...

To the Sea O grey wild sea, Thou hast a message, thunderer, for me. Their huge wide backs Thy monstrous billows raise, abysmal cracks Dug deep between. One pale boat flutters over them, hardly seen. I hear thy roar Call me, “Why dost thou linger on the shore With fearful eyes Watching my tops visit their foam-washed skies? This trivial boat Dares my vast battering billows and can float. Death if i...

Immortal Love If I had wooed thee for thy colour rare, Cherished the rose in thee Or wealth of Nature’s brilliants in thy hair, O woman fair, My love might cease to be. Or, had I sought thee for thy virtuous youth And tender yearning speech, Thy swift compassion and deliberate truth, O heart of ruth, Time might pursue, might reach. But I have loved thee for thyself indeed And with myself have snar...

O love, what more shall I, shall Radha speak, Since mortal words are weak? In life, in death, In being and in breath No other lord but thee can Radha seek. About thy feet the mighty net is wound Wherein my soul they bound; Myself resigned To servitude my mind; My heart than thine no sweeter slavery found. I, Radha, thought; through the three worlds my gaze I sent in wild amaze; I was alone. None c...

What is this talk of slayer and of slain? Swords are not sharp to slay nor floods assuage This flaming soul. Mortality and pain Are mere conventions of a mightier stage. As when a hero by his doom pursued Falls like a pillar of the huge world uptorn Shaking the hearts of men and awe-imbued, Silent the audience sits or weeps forlorn, Meanwhile behind the stage the actor sighs Deep-lunged relief, pu...

To Weep because a Glorious Sun To weep because a glorious sun has set Which the next morn shall gild the east again, To mourn that mighty strengths must yield to fate Which by that fall a double force attain, To shrink from pain without whose friendly strife Joy could not be, to make a terror of death Who smiling beckons us to farther life And is a bridge for the persistent breath; Despair and ang...

The Just Man Where is the man whom hope nor fear can move?     Him the wise Gods approve. The man divine of motive pure and steadfast will         Unbent to ill, Whose way is plain nor swerves for power or gold     The high, straight path to hold:— Him only wise the wise Gods deem, him pure of lust;         Him only just. Tho’ men give rubies, tho’ they bring a prize     Sweeter than Helen’s eyes—...

A Doubt Many boons the new years make us     But the old world’s gifts were three, Dove of Cypris, wine of Bacchus,     Pan’s sweet pipe in Sicily. Love, wine, song, the core of living     Sweetest, oldest, musicalest. If at end of forward striving     These, Life’s first, proved also best? Read Online: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/a-doubt