the passing ages seem,
When years are given for thy day.
How many still would fight and die
In thine old cause and for thy weal!
I would once more beneath thy sky
Brandish my sharp and shining steel.
The purest love I give away,
The bliss of it I set at naught;
Again I’m on my wayward way
Seeking what I have often sought.
My wounded hopes, my bleeding ties,
No peace inglorious e’er shall heal:
I would once more beneath thy skies
Brandish my sharp and shining steel.
O Freedom, though thy price be high,
Though one for thee his life must seal,
I would once more beneath thy sky
Brandish my sharp and shining steel.
The Road of Make-Believe
She sits upon a rock along the stream
That heard the whisper of her first Desire,
Washing the faded garment of her Dream,
Which she had often carried to the Dyer—
The Dream of her self-centred lyric fire.
And in the flowing, scarlet wounds of Twilight,
Expiring on Aurora’s drooping wings
Beneath the secret scimitar of Night,
She dyes again her garment, while she sings
Of new-born love, though to self-love she clings.
He seeks the path of glory in the noon
Of self-intoxication, dreaming still
Of power—wondering why the sun and moon
Are not yoked to the chariot of his will.
His soul, a clinging vine, his mind, an ill,
He beats against the peaks of earth-bound dreams.
Subsisting on the thistles of his heart,
But ever seeking, in the fitful gleams
Of his own fire, self-admiration’s mart
To mend his horn or whet his venomed dart.
They walk together in the golden vast
Of vision-haunted, soul-alluring sands.
Beholding the illusions of the past
Among the ruins of deserted lands;—
Together, although neither understands
The groping purpose of the other; and yet,
While in their hearts the gods of conflict nod,
They gloze and smile, dissembling their regret:
Love, on the Road of Make-Believe, they prod,
He going to the dogs and she, to God.
Renunciation
At eventide the Pilgrim came
And knocked at the Belovéd’s door.
“Whose there!” a voice within, “Thy name?”
“ ’T is I,” he said.—“Then knock no more.
As well ask thou a lodging of the sea—
There is no room herein for thee and me.”
The Pilgrim went again his way
And dwelt with Love upon the shore
Of self-oblivion; and one day
He knocked again at the Belovéd’s door.
“Whose there?”—“It is thyself,” he now replied,
And suddenly the door was opened wide.
A Sufi Song
My heart ’s the field I sow for thee,
For thee to water and to reap;
My heart ’s the house I ope for thee,
For thee to air and dust and sweep;
My heart ’s the rug I spread for thee,
For thee to dance or pray or sleep;
My heart ’s the pearls I thread for thee,
For thee to wear or break or keep;
My heart ’s a sack of magic things—
Magic carpets, caps and rings—
To bring thee treasures from afar
And from the Deep.
The Two Brothers2
In the grotto the forest designed,
Where the firefly first dreamed of the sun
And the cricket first chirped to the blind
Zoophyte—in the cave of the mind
We were born and our cradle is one.
We are brothers: together we dwelt
Unknown and unheard and unseen
For aeons; together we felt
The urge of the forces that melt
The rocks into willowy green.
For aeons together we drifted
In the molten abysses of flame,
While the Cycles our heritage sifted
From the vapor and ooze, and uplifted
The image that now bears our name.
I am God: thou art Man: but the light
That mothers the planets, the sea
Of star-dust that roofs every height
Of the Universe, the gulfs of the night—
They are surging in thee as in me.
But out of the Chaos, to lead us,
The Giants that borrow our eyes
And lend us their shoulders, must heed us;—
They yield us their purpose, they deed us
Forever the worlds and the skies.
God of the Distances, Hear Us
God of the Distances, hear us—
Hear us and guide us today.
Thy footsteps, though never so near us,
Are lost in the dust of the fray.
Thy high priests, who often have spoken
The word that was heeded, are mute;
Their torch is extinguished; their token
Is distrust and discord and dispute.
God of the Distances, never
Was man, though still fettered, so free
To challenge his star and to sever
Himself from the past and from thee.
But we, though our spirit is broken,
We heed thee again and anon;
We trust thee, O God, though thy token
Be the desert, thy promise, the sun.
Forever the Distances call us—
The Distances veiled of the Dream;
And we come, whatsoever befall us,
Our pledges and thine to redeem.
We come; and though often we altered
Our course at the gates of dismay,
We never looked backward or faltered,
Never regretted our way.
God of the Distances, hear us—
Hear us and guide us today.
From the cave of the first Dream we wandered
Through the forests of Fate and of Chance;
And on many an illusion we squandered
The treasures of Faith and Romance.
We fared with the Fairies of noontide,
We roved with the Jinn of the night;
Our high priests we left on the wayside,
Our prophets we lost on the height
Of rebellion recurrent. We passed
Many a temple and shrine,
Where the sherds of old creeds were recast
And traded as tokens divine.
We passed them, forever consoled
And cajoled by the Voice—“ ’T is the way
Of your goal; your forebodings allay.”
But thousands of cycles we told,
Millions of leagues we unrolled,
Heedless of Time and his sway.
God of the visions of old,
Hear us and guide us today.
We sailed all the Seas of the Mind,
We rounded the Capes of the Soul,
We crossed all the Channels that roll
Over the dead of our kind.
And on many a beckoning strand,
Furrowed with silvery streams,
We lingered, but lo, in the land
Were the desolate gardens of dreams.—
Onward! the sails of Desire,
Born of the Distances’ fire,
Tattered but ever unfurled,
To worlds undiscovered aspire—
To the life-giving worlds of our world.
Onward! though no signs appear
Where once rose the phares of the Seer
And the Prophet. On,
