Epiphany

EpiphanyImmortal, moveless, calm, alone, august,A silence throned, to just and to unjustOne Lord of still unutterable love,I saw Him, Shiva, like a brooding doveClose-winged upon her nest. The outcasts came,The sinners gathered to that quiet flame,The demons by the other sterner godsRejected from their luminous abodesGathered around the Refuge of the lostSoft-smiling on that wild and grisly host.All who were refugeless, wretched, unloved,The wicked and the good together movedNaturally to Him, the shelterer sweet,And found their heaven at their Master’s feet.The vision changed and in its place there stoodA Terror red as lightning or as blood.His strong right hand a javelin advancedAnd as He shook it, earthquake stumbling dancedAcross the hemisphere, ruin and plagueRained out of heaven, disasters swift and vagueNeighboured, a marching multitude of ills.His foot strode forward to oppress the hills,And at the vision of His burning eyesThe hearts of men grew faint with dread surmiseOf sin and punishment. Their cry was loud,“O master of the stormwind and the cloud,Spare, Rudra, spare! Show us that other formAuspicious, not incarnate wrath and storm.”The God of Force, the God of Love are one;Not least He loves whom most He smites. AloneWho towers above fear and plays with grief,Defeat and death, inherits full reliefFrom blindness and beholds the single Form,Love masking Terror, Peace supporting Storm.The Friend of Man helps him with life and deathUntil he knows. Then, freed from mortal breath,Grief, pain, resentment, terror pass away.He feels the joy of the immortal play;He has the silence and the unflinching force,He knows the oneness and the eternal course.He too is Rudra and thunder and the Fire,He Shiva and the white Light no shadows tire,The Strength that rides abroad on Time’s wide wings,The Calm in the heart of all immortal things.Read Online: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/epiphany

To R.The repetition of thy gracious years Brings back once more thy natal morn.Upon the crest of youth thy life appears,— A wave upborne.Amid the hundreds thronging Ocean’s floor A wave upon the crowded seaWith regular rhythm pushing towards the shore Our life must be.The power that moves it is the Ocean’s force Invincible, eternal, free,And by that impulse it pursues its course Inevitably.We, too, by the Eternal Might are led To whatsoever goal He wills.Our helm He grasps, our generous sail outspread His strong breath fills.Exulting in the grace and strength of youth Pursue the Ocean’s distant bound,Trusting the Pilot’s voice, the Master’s ruth That rings us round.Rejoice and fear not for the waves that swell, The storms that thunder, winds that sweep;Always our Captain holds the rudder well, He does not sleep.If in the trough of the enormous sea Thou canst not find the sky for spray,Fear never, for our Sun is there with thee By night and day.Even those who sink in the victorious flood, Where do they sink? Into His breast.He who to some gives victory, joy and good, To some gives rest.But thou, look to the radiant days that wait Beyond the driving rain and storm.I have seen the vision of a happier fate Brightening thy form.Confident of His grace, expect His will; Let Him lead; though hidden be the bourne,See Him in all that happens; that fulfil For which thou wert born.Read Online: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/to-r

Transiit, Non PeriitNot in annihilation lost, nor givenTo darkness art thou fled from us and light,O strong and sentient spirit; no mere heavenOf ancient joys, no silence eremiteReceived thee; but the omnipresent ThoughtOf which thou wast a part and earthly hour,Took back its gift. Into that splendour caughtThou hast not lost thy special brightness. PowerRemains with thee and the old genial forceUnseen for blinding light, not darkly lurks:As when a sacred river in its courseDives into ocean, there its strength abidesNot less because with vastness wed and worksUnnoticed in the grandeur of the tides.Read Online: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/transiit-non-periit

Perfect thy MotionPerfect thy motion ever within me, Master of mind.Grey of the brain, flash of the lightning, Brilliant and blind,These thou linkest, the world to mould,Writing the thought in a scroll of gold Violet lined.Tablet of brain thou hast made for thy writing, Master divine.Calmly thou writest or full of thy grandeur Flushed as with wine.Then with a laugh thou erasest the scroll,Bringing another, like waves that roll And sink supine.Link: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/perfect-thy-motionReading By Tara Jauhar

EveningA golden evening, when the thoughtful sun Rejects its usual pomp in going, treesThat bend down to their green companion And fruitful mother, vaguely whispering,—theseAnd a wide silent sea. Such hour is nearest God,—Rich like old age when the long ways have all been trod.Read Online: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/evening

KamaO desolations vast, O seas of spaceUnpeopled, realms of an unfertile light,Grow multitudinous with living forms,Enamoured of desire! I send My breathInto the heart of being, and the stormOf sweet attraction shall break up its calmWith quivering passionate intensityAnd silence change to a melodious cry,And all the world be rose. Out of My heartSuns shall flame up into the listless void,And the stars wheel in magic dances roundWeaving the web of mortal life. For IAm love, am passion; I create the world.I am the only Brahma. My desireTakes many forms; I change and wheel and race,And with Me runs creation. I preserve,For I am Love. I weary of Myself,And the world circles back into the Vast.Delight and laughter walking hand in handGo with Me, and I play with grief and pain.I am the dance of Krishna, I the danceOf Kálí . Might and majesty are Mine,And yet I make the heart a child at play,The soul of things a woman full of bliss.Hunger and Thirst, arise and make the world!Delight, go down and give it strength to live!O Ether, change! O Breath of things, grow fullOf the perpetual whirl! Break out, O Fire,In seas of magic colour, infinite wavesOf rainbow light! Thou, liquid element,Be sap, be taste in all created thingsTo please the senses. Thou, O solid earth,Enter into all life, support the worlds.I send forth Joy to lure the hearts of men,I send forth Law to harmonise and rule.And when these things are done, when men have learnedMy beauty, My desirability, My bliss,I will conceal Myself from their desireAnd make this rule of the eternal chase,“They who abandon Me, shall to all timeClasp and possess; they who pursue, shall lose.”Read Online: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/kama

On the MountainsImmense retreats of silence and of gloom, Hills of a sterile grandeur, rocks that sublimeIn 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 immemorableVoiceless and needless keep your refuge vast, Growing into the peace in which I dwell.For like that Soul unmade you seem to brood Who sees all things emerge but none creates,Watching the ages from His solitude, Lone, unconcerned, remote. You to all FatesOffer an unchanged heart, unmoved abide, Wordless, acceptant, sovereignly still.There is a soul in us as silent, wide, Mere, uncreative, imperturbable.Read Online: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/on-the-mountains

Suddenly Out from the Wonderful EastSuddenly out from the wonderful East like a woman exultingDawn stepped forth with a smile on her lips, and the glory of morningHovered 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 from the northlands crowding,Touching the steps of the ghauts with the silver tips of their fingersLightly the waters ran and talked to each other of sunshine,Lightly they laughed. But high on his stake impaled by the roadwayHung Mandavya the mighty in marble deep meditation,Sepulchred, dumb; on his either side were the thieves, immobile.They were dead, made free from cruelty, ceasing from anguish,And forgetting the thirst. But past them Ganges the mighty,First of the streams of the earth, our Mother, remembering the ages,Poured to the sea.Early at dawn by her ghauts the women of Mithila gathered.There they filled their gurgling jars, or gilding the GangesBathed in her waters and laughed as they bathed there clamouring, dashingDew of her coolness in eyes of each other: the banks called sweetlyMad with the musical laughter of girls and joy of their crying,Low melodious cries. As when in a wood on the hillsidesThousands of bulbuls flitting and calling, eating the wild plums,Filling the ear with sweetness carry from treetop to treetopVermeil of crest and scarlet of tail and small brown bodiesFlitting and calling, calling and flitting, full of sweet clamour,Full of the wine of life, even such was the sweetness and clamour,Women bathing close by the ghauts of the radiant Ganges,Golden-limbed or white or darker than olives when ripest,Lovely of face or of mood, but all sweethearted and happyAryan women. One there seemed of another mouldingWho was aloof from the crowd and the chaos of cheerful faces.She at one side of the stairway slowly like one half-musingBathed there, hiding her face in the deep cool bosom of waters,Losing herself in Ganges, or let its pearl drops dribbleQuietly down through the mystical night of her tresses on gleamingShoulders, betwixt her great breasts noble as hills at noontideBack to their hurrying home: nor heeded the laughter near her.Only at times when the clamour grew high, she would look up smilingSuch a slow sweet serious smile as a tender motherWatching her children at play might smile forgetting the sorrowDown in her own still patient heart where the deep tears gatheredSwell unwept, till they turn to a sea of sorrowful pity.Read online: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/suddenly-out-from-the-wonderful-east

To the GangesHearken, 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 snowwhite mountains speeding, the immortal peaks and cold, Crowd thy waves untouched by man.From Gungotry through the valleys next their icy tops were rolled, Bursting through Shivadry ran.In Benares’ stainless city by defilement undefiled Ghauts and temples lightly touchedWith thy fingers as thou ranst, laughed low in pureness like a child To his mother’s bosom clutched.Where the steps of Rama wandered, where the feet of Krishna came, There thou flowest, there thy handClasps us, Bhagirathie, Jahnavie or Gunga, and thy name Holier makes the Aryans’ land.But thou leavest Aryavurtha, but thou leapest to the seas In thy hundred mighty streams;Nor in the unquiet Ocean vast thy grandiose journeyings cease, Mother, say thy children’s dreams.Down thou plungest through the Ocean, far beneath its oozy bed In Patala’s leaden gloomMoaning o’er her children’s pain our mother, Ganges of the dead, Leads our wandering spirits home.Mighty with the mighty still thou dwelledst, goddess high and pure; Iron Bhîshma was thy son,Who against ten thousand rushing chariots could in war endure; Many heroes fled from one.Devavrath the mighty, Bhîshma with his oath of iron power, Smilingly who gave up fullJoy of human life and empire, that his father’s wish might flower And his father’s son might rule.Who were these that thronged thereafter? wherefore came these puny hearts Apter for the cringing slave,Wrangling, selfish, weak and treacherous, vendors of their nobler parts, Sorry food for pyre and grave?O but these are men of mind not yet with Europe’s brutal mood alloyed, Poets singing in their chains,Preachers teaching manly slavery, speakers thundering in the void. Motley wear these men of brains!Well it is for hound and watchdog fawning at a master’s feet, Cringing, of the whip afraid!Well it is for linnet caged to make with song his slavery sweet. Man for other ends was made.Man the arrogant, the splendid, man the mighty wise and strong, Born to rule the peopled earth,Shall he bear the alien’s insult, shall he brook the tyrant’s wrong Like a thing of meaner birth?Sreepoor in the east of Chand and Kédar, bright with Mogul blood, And the Kings of AracanAnd the Atlantic pirates helped that hue,—its ruined glory flood Kîrtinasha’s waters wan.Buried are our cities; fallen the apexed dome, the Indian arch; In Chitore the jackals crowd:Krishna’s Dwarca sleeps for ever, o’er its ruined bastions march All the Oceans thundering loud.Still, yet still the fire of Kali on her ancient altar burns Smouldering under smoky pall,And the deep heart of her peoples to their Mighty Mother turns, Listening for her Titan call.Yet Pratapaditya’s great fierce spirit shall in might awake In Jessore he loved and made,Sitaram the good and mighty for his well-loved people’s sake Leave the stillness and the shade.And Bengal the wide and ancient where the Senas swayed of old Up to far Benares pure,She shall lead the Aryan peoples to the mighty doom foretold And her glory shall endure.By her heart of quick emotion, by her brain of living fire, By her vibrant speech and great,She shall lead them, they shall see their destiny in her warm desire Opening all the doors of Fate.By the shores of Brahmaputra or where Ganges nears the sea, Even now a flame is born...........Read further online using link below.Read online: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/to-the-ganges

VisionWho art thou that roamest Over mountains dimIn 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 calmness Lightly like a dove,With thy careless eyelids Confident of love,As of old thou comest Down the mountains far,Smiling from what gardens, Glowing from what star?Racing from the hilltops Like a brilliant stream,Burning in the valleys Marble-bright of limb,Singing in the orchards When the shadows fall,With thy crooning anklets To my heart that call,By the darkening window Like a slender fire,With the night behind thee, Daughter of desire!Open wide the doorway, Bid my love come inWith the night behind her And the dawn within.Take, O radiant fingers, Heart and hands of me,Hide them in thy bosom, O felicity!Read online: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/vision