PS 3535 .015 L7 1905 Copy 1 VE PO E MS SECOND SERIES GINA.LD e ROBBINS LIBRARY OF CONGRESS DDDlDlt,'=it,41 (lass /^6 00 o ^ (:op\TighiN" 1j)J1 COl'YRIC.HT DKFOSIT. LOVE POEMS SECOND SERIES REGINALD C. ROBBINS CAMBRIDGE ^rinteh at tlje itibetitfitie ^tt^^ 1905 LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Copies Received DEC 1 1905 CopyrljUt Entry ^^. (o, tqcs CLASS tfu XXc. No. COPY B. COPYRIGHT I90S BY REGINALD CHAUNCEY ROBBINS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED t^-^oop CONTENTS Page PSALMS i I-XXXl NATURE AND RELIGION 35 I-XIV PURGATORY AND JUDGMENT 51 I-X VEDAS 63 I-XIII HELLENICS 79 I-XXVIII AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE • ; • .... 109 I-XXXII PSALMS PSALMS I 1 COME to thee, beloved, not with a lie ; But frankly, fairly, with confession full Of old lost love behind this love for thee. Yea, I have lived, have suffered ; and know the need Of continence in every dream of thee ; Of fear and reverence in thine holy place Beyond this tumult of delight in thee. 1 have been through the fire, not all unscathed ; And yet with prayer and praise would enter now On a new martyrdom if but for thee. Beloved, thou wilt not blame that there hath been Another's love. It serves to deepen thine. LOVE POEMS II For I am as a soul prepared by years Of fasting from the sight of promised lands To enter in, not as a conqueror But, as a lost life in the hand of God The suddenly compassionate to turn The famine and the fever of mine heart To solemn splendor all unmerited. Nay, I have learn'd religion and am come But to obey behest of lovers supreme Commandment whatsoever may befall. The desert lieth about me. But mine eyes Have seen : and now I very well may die. PSALMS III And if not unto death but unto life Thou leadest me to take possession, in The name of the Most High, of heaven-on -earth ; If thou al lowest that I may lay my life Quick, stalwart at thy feet for service there ; Shall any blame be that I still have served In darkness and in desperate dismay. With face of heaven averted, some false god That seem'd scarce false to mine idolatry ? There be who call such service unrepaid The nobler. Yea, at worst I have not swerved From worship ; though the noblest were of thee. LOVE POEMS IV And thereby, that 1 come to thee with full Experience of the powers that sway the heart Within itself to live or yet to die ; Therein that I have felt how soul alone Determines life or death within itself, Choosing between false gods and God Most High ; Therefore were God Most High, as this my soul, Self-comprehended in this love of thee ; Which, losing lesser loves, finds them afresh Transfigured and regenerate : as the gods Have sanction, ay, and warranty but through Thy God of Love Who comprehends them all. PSALMS Thus in the wisdom of the new delight New worth is yielded to the former loss ; And this enrapture hath about it still The ancient tragedy. The beauty of it Were blent with beauty of an Hell behind Now lifted clean of Hell's sheer agony And seen a foil for Heaven to heighten it. The misery, the infinite dismay Were then blameworthy in their own sad hour Not now. I turn to thee as free and pure As any seraph. And thine angelhood Thus wholly triumphs as the legions fall. LOVE POEMS VI The legions of the fiend within me then Thus wholly serve and crown thee conqueror Who art thyself new savior to my soul. A justification of the ways of God To man finds instance in mine heart to-day Who wholly love thee, having wholly loved And lost ; and could not know thee thus with heart Wholly subdued and chasten'd, all devout, Save for the shame and sorrow that hath been. Thy grace, beloved ! if a moment's gleam Of hope betray'd a spirit still unredeemed ! 'T were false. I hope not. I but stand and wait. PSALMS VII Yet is delay itself a misery ; For I im mortal if my love is not. And loss of opportunity to serve Is loss of life all irremediable. Lo ! I am creature, less than godhead, still ; And need thy very presence, and thy power Envisaging, to be as I would be Seer and prophet of thy reign on earth. The world is thine and I am of thy world Indeed : but am such distant part in it ! Only my love, containing thee afar, Enableth me to wait : though I must mourn LOVE POEMS Vlll Yea, in each hour *soever of my search Through all things for the chance to serve thy will (A search that falleth frustrate everywhere Because, forsooth, I dare not pray thee yet To grant command, to set the task ; but must In secret worship lest thou turn from me !), Findeth my spirit in the failure still Thy best compassion and benignity ! For 't is in terms of thee my love interprets Or failure or success ; in name of thee That I within myself have end and aim : And am as one with thee though thou wouldst not. 10 PSALMS IX THEREFORE, since all of earth interprets thee Unto my love ; and I in learning earth Learn thee, searching thy scriptures with a faith Increasing for the wisdom gain'd of thee ; Therefore am I through every loneliest hour Increasing hourly in the love of thee. As in capacity (with heart enrapt Of understanding of thy ways to men) To pray to thee and preach the gospel of thee Unto the nations ! — Who, that knew thee not By vigil and by fasting and by searching Thy wonderwork, might prophesy thee true ? 11 LOVE POEMS And so I go before thee among men Undoubting, uttering of thee day by day The day's best message : ** I am he who cometh In name of Love, before the feet of her Love's angel of the miracle to men." Though wastes be, ay, about me and my fare Be famine, my face perforce averted from thee To speak with fearlessness my message to them, Yet shall the path behind be blossoming ; And fruitfulness unto the husbandman Reward earth in thy footsteps. And mine eyes Are forward set, assured that thus are thine. 12 PSALMS XI And that 1 am fresh convert to thy faith Disableth not from full apostleship In the new light, new learning. Had I been A sorry skeptic, cynic, stoic, till Thy power possessed me, what afflatus now Could e'er compensate for the weakling soul ? What heart of suffering were beneath these lips To speak with understanding, not as one Requiring authority for voice ? Art thou not holier and thy prophet purer That he hath pray'd in the temple whilst they scoff'd ; And thou art proven divine beyond all gods ? 13 LOVE POEMS Xll Wherefore in fine I pray thee (for the first If not the last desire directed toward thee), * Accept this scripture of an earlier faith Not dedicate to thee save as I now Declare to thee : the Spirit that cult but miss*d Find I concentred in thy strength and mind. Read in my book, beloved, how, should thine heart Prove unresponsive, must thy worshiper Degenerate beneath contempt at last And the mantle fall from the prophet lost in soul. — 1 nothing hope. I nothing claim of thee. I but avow, beloved, my love is so. 14 PSALMS XIII Perchance thou wilt assert thou needest nought Of prophecy to help prepare thy way. Thou findest all paths pleasant, hast enough Of worshipers and wouldst not enter on Crusade of saviorship for any soul ? One more, one less ! His very need confessed For thee must seem unworthy in thy sight ? His fear to fall must prove unfitness in him ? I fear not. Only, if thou art the God My faith envisioneth, thou wilt not wait Eternally before thou takest on thee The human way and sufferest for man. 15 LOVE POEMS XIV How high an office then of prophecy Without assurance of the spoken word Vouchsafed nor present vision in the flesh ! How proud a mantle ; when the very God Withholdeth sign and doubteth of the way ! Not merely to announce to wondering men The white love-miracle ; but all the while To pray for truth of what the lips proclaim ! And never doubting, save to conquer doubt And yield faith greater glory ! If the God Doubteth of saviorship, O love, behold This more-than-man thy power hath raised to praise thee ! 16 PSALMS XV Thou wilt not misinterpret. I but mean, No man, save for thy spirit to strengthen him Within him by the love he beareth thee, Might without desperate dismay indeed Abide thine absence and thy silence still. No word ; though I have prophesied aloud Thy coming, now 'twould seem so long ago ! And I must wait the fire to fall, though nought Of light's least glimmering followeth on the prayer For all the faith of him thine oracle ! And mine heart scoffs me. Love, might a mere man Endure between thy silence, and self-scorn ? 17 LOVE POEMS XVI Thou hast vouchsafed the leading and a light Out of the silence ; and I fall afraid. Unto my spirit hath thy still voice spoke Encouraging ; and now I sink ashamed : Who was thy poet aloud when thou wast dumb Now speechless bows a coward's brow before thee. Thou knowest not the low humanity Thou stoopest thus to lift. One touch of mine Would ruin divinity — e'en such as thee ! I flee before thee, scarce thy prophet now, Though yet thy servant : seeking thus to save Heart's miracle from turning common clay. 18 PSALMS XVIi And yet what service, thus to doubt of thee Thine absolute godship though thy soul assume The human way, and sufferest and dwellest Among men that the earth may learn of thee ? What saviorship were mine, to thwart in thee The perfect sacrifice that most proclaims Thy womanhood divine and shows thee, God, As thou wouldst win and save a human soul ? How despicable the doubt that though I were — Yea, that 1 am ! — thy strength might ever fail ! 1 will accept the intimation ; pray For power to endure as chosen of the Lord. 19 LOVE POEMS XVIII Beloved, what vain presumption to pretend Authentic oracle at last vouchsafed ! What phantasm of this fever-misted soul To hear in the ears what yet the sense of man Hath heard not, nay, and haply shall not hear ! I, overtask'd with watching, see the night Suddenly open'd : and have but dream'd the dawn As mine exhaustion dropt me where I lie ! Humbly I will arise, groping to greet The world as thou hast made it ; starless, yea — Though not with any dawn as I had dream'd ; And humbly learn thee from thy stocks and stones. 20 PSALMS XIX FOR, lo ! I know thee hardly yet at all, To tell the meaning of thy slightest speech Or silence as my heart would deeply know ! And thou, yea, though all-wise mightest still doubt The wonder and sincerity of worship Of him harping before thee at thine ark ! Thou mightest deem him one but of the throng Idly frequenting this thy tabernacle For casual augury ; not one who comes Searching the revelations for some song Of absolute insight and significance — Who would be King in Israel ; or dead. 21 LOVE POEMS XX LOVE, but perchance thou art not then aware Of speech unto the theme that stirreth me ? Thou hast not broken silence in thine heart ; And but with some lip-music fool'st mine ear Unwittingly, with merely natural speech Of maidenhood, not supernature's way ? The womanly divine but slumbereth still ; And this is witchery though nought of love ? — And yet, though thou wert soulless even in song. Need I be as the deaf filPd with despair ? I fear not, hope not, doubt not ; knowing all speech Symphonic in thee : as thou art my soul. 22 PSALMS XXI But unto thee divine I turn and pray With expectation full by prayer to win Through grace vouchsafed that which by works alone Were nowise merited. For by the prayer, Utter'd in perfect faith of grace to be, I lift beyond the human to thy life Of miracle and am with thee divine. 1 asking of thee that thou realize, love. Merely the meaning of our humanhood. — Were 't for an hour, a day, this love I ask, 'T were somewhat then to tax a finite faith. But it is only for eternity. 23 LOVE POEMS XXII Ay, 't is the absoluteness of the grace Demanded that ensureth confidence. How might I ask thee any finite boon With hope to win or courage for the loss — We being, we both, but soulless at the last If chaffering of other gift than love ? 'T is certain that the prayer, and so the grace, Concludeth every possibility Of earth's well-being. Bitter, yea, as were That hour when thou shalt cast presumption down, Rather would I be thine scorn *d and rejected Than high-priest unto any of them all. 24 PSALMS XXIII FOR what were I advantaged by the speech Of any oracle of those not thine ? Profuse be many of the multi-gods In favor unto men idolatrous As thousand of their prophets still report. So be it, I have unto the world without No word authentic to proclaim. Beneath Thy common tabernacle I but stand *Mid many ; and am not yet call'd within The holier place, nor ever may be call'd. Enough. I know the shrine is sanctified ; And thou art God in Israel alone. 25 LOVE POEMS XXIV And thus by being alone the God Most High Yieldest thou sanction to the oracles Of those idolaters and makest their sin A splendor and a safeguard unto earth. If in thy majesty thou still art proven, Defined and reverenced by being above All pettier godships ; then, by this thy place Unique beyond all sanctuaries else, Are they authentic oracle and those Not all-deluded in their worshiping. Yea, I have elsewhere worship'd ; yet am come Not sinful unto wisdom beyond all. 26 PSALMS XXV Therefore it were not wholly ruinous, As might have been were faith less liberal, This that I learn from other prophets now Proclaim 'd anent thee with assured self -truth. If thou hast spoken, yea, to them, not me, Ay, through some oracle not thine alone, 'T were otherwise a faith-destroying shame. But now I bow to thine inscrutable Benignity that thou to man some least Hath spoken, if yet not in thine own way As I had deem'd thy best and holiest. I lie before thee stricken, but not dumb. 27 LOVE POEMS XXVI And from the silence of thy proper shrine Cometh a sudden sound of purer proof Than any heard and by their tongues retold From other oracle. I cease from prayer And hearken only ; and am wholly rapt By wonder of the beauty of that voice. It speaketh not the last ennobling word Of absolute sanction to the waiting soul. It sayeth not : *' I choose thee." But the God (O love, the God-in-thee ! ) hath said at last (And I myself hearing it do believe) : ** I hear thee. Verily thy God I am ! " 28 PSALMS XXVII Therefore unto the Lord sing a new song, Concluding every symphony of earth In one word, meet for man unto his God. Unto the God within me and in thee Give prophecy, speaking before the Lord The word His wisdom holdeth heart in heart ! Therefore, *' I love thee ! " sing I openly ; Knowing thy soul hath hearken'd, knowing all Of earth, thine earth, will tell thee of my love And there be no concealment, but all truth Be utterly reveal'd and world be new. Therefore new heaven, new earth, sing thee this song. 29 LOVE POEMS XXVIII FOR I am as a man made over new, Regenerate and transfigured, resurrect From out the charnel of the love gone by. Thou stretchest forth thy finger and sayest " Come.'* And the rigor melts in rapture, and the ear Heareth the call that had not before heard ; And a great morning bursts over the eyes With inrush of the sunshine from above, As the grave opens and the sepulchre Falleth asunder and the soul is free. And Lazarus he waketh suddenly And filleth his vision with thy seraph face. 30 PSALMS XXIX Ah ! but, behold, as I arise to speak : *' Master ! " and touch thy garment and be heal'd Behold, the hand, that I in death had dream 'd Held forth to succor and be miracle, Withdraweth ; the vision melteth and the tomb Closeth anew upon the doom'd at last. Thy pardon, Lord, that he who lieth dead Had dream'd of resurrection ! Could thy power But grant a quietude within the grave, The charnel scarce were desolate. But now 1 desperately aspire, eternally 1 suffocate within thy sepulchre ! 31 LOVE POEMS XXX Yet will I not the miracle shall fail Wholly ; nor thou be God unhumanized, Not walking on the earth to save the dead. Nor if thou walkest of earth shall I admit Thee undivine because I cannot rise. It is my spirit's failure that draws me back ; I was not sleeping but was truly dead. And now it is thy miracle's success, Best resurrection that might come to me To agonize within my charnel-house ! Beloved, I thank thee for thy miracle, Who learn my doom and make my life of it. 32 PSALMS XXXI FOR one last privilege thou canst not take : The mystery, that I half-waked to thee ; The joy, that I have been thy doorkeeper, In sanctity despising Belial's feasts. If from the temple thou hast purged me out, Yet never was 1 there a trafficker Nor scoffer ; but have recollection now Of the sterner cult : Jehovah, Lord-I-Am. — 'T were clearer so. I might forsooth confuse My mere humanity with thy divine, Wert thou, too, human ! And I now rejoice In thine authentic wrath for sign of God. 33 NATURE AND RELIGION NATURE AND RELIGION 1 Beloved, I in obedience to thy will Declared by oracle of flame vouchsafed Am fled before thee and am cover 'd now Of wilderness. Not as the dove wing-borne To dwell at peace ; but with a patient toil Hour by hour, day added unto day. Have I fared forestward through forest depths To reach earth's rigor and be death with it. Thou hast denied thy 'live humanity In thine own person. Wherefore am I fled (Balk'd of all aspiration) to the deeps To find thee. And, behold ! thou art not here. 37 LOVE POEMS II There are whose wisdom findeth a divine In earth sans aspiration to achieve ; Who would suppose thee in thy stocks and stones Without discrimination. Not so I. The ways of wilderness I well have known Long ere I knew of thee. The joys uncouth, Confused felicities of beast, of bird. The multitudinous mating of the trees, Have not been seal'd from me. And so I come As to an old familiar to these paths Of earth the elder birth before God was. And, lo ! how might earth's godlessness mean thee ? 38 NATURE AND RELIGION III There are who, failing faith in beast, bird, branch, As these are brute-like, beast-like, fain have set God over against any of his works Beyond and yet not of them. These are fled Even forestward and unto wilderness In fear but not in fair obedience To any call divine. And these would dwell Living the life uncouth, the monstrous love, The multitudinous bestialness indeed In brute content, forgetful still of thee. May I who fail of faith in beast and bird Thus also utterly lose faith in thee ? 39 LOVE POEMS IV LOVE ! therefore, rising from the ways of beast And branch, upreaching from the forest deeps Their labyrinth and dimness, have I climb'd Even to these rock-set hilltops, worn o' the wind, O* the lightning burnt at a blast, but thus in sweep Commanding from above prospect of all Earth's brute-like multitudinous upthrusts Of mountainous emotions rough and swarth. Here of these hills for an hour may I assume The outlook as of faith self-lift within ; To reinterpret earth in terms at worst Of some intelligence and truth of thee ? 40 NATURE AND RELIGION The noon is on all nature : the prime of light Intense as once the stroke that on these hills Fell to yield Vision by the fiery wrack. Now is the solstice of the searching day To reach within the dim wood-fastnesses Their dens of indiscrimination still And strike and clear all re-creatingly As at the God-birth when light first moved upon The chaos. Now my soul, annihilate Late by thy word which erst created it, Seeth its death — foregone — yet none less near, And needing re-creation in thy name. 41 LOVE POEMS VI FOR God (and by the godship of the world 1 ever mean love's insight self-defining, Within and yet without and through all things, Their substance, strength and purpose!) God bein^ not Found of the wilderness as earth is brute And bestial in its deep primordial sin Of indiscrimination self from self ; God being not earth i' the birth, and earth alone Not satisfying as earth's throes of the throng Are over against God's Self and not of Him : Therefore art thou not to be found of earth As earth is seen and known in primal fact. 42 NATURE AND RELIGION VII Toward earth's first fact I did indeed return (Because thou saidst : "Divine ye shall not be.") Therewith to dwell in dim bewilderment As beast and branch as they for fact are known — Without faith in them and not finding thee. Now have my feet aspired, mine eyes attain 'd In some sort to an introspect of earth As from some secret eminence of soul (Of soul's necessity, akin to thee !) Down-gazing forestward to comprehend The selfhood, spiritual determinateness, The godliness of wilderness — by thee. 43 LOVE POEMS VIII And thus upon these lofty uplands stand I strong of prospect by the self-death foregone ; Confronting with the sense of splendor still The misery of the meaner ways of life Whereto thy speech hath doomed me. There may be God in the wilderness. There may be yet Thou in the deeps whereto I must descend, Thou lifting, sustaining as these hills sustain The dim uncertain patience and the toil Unending and unresting, infinite stint. Here of these hills I learn there is a God Could I but find Him. For I see as He. 44 NATURE AND RELIGION IX Behold a beauty and wonder of the world — Thy name and definition ! — not of thee, Yet, as I see, seen in the faith of thee And otherwise not wonder-beautiful ! Here is the ordering of rock and stream, The rigor of nature systemized and true Declared. And truth is utterly of thee. Deep calleth unto deep when I to thee Speak from this wilderness in faith of thee The meaning and intelligence of these Thy soul ; despite thy soul-denial still ! — Though they be, yea, apart as deep from deep. 45 LOVE POEMS Thus in thy person art thou vital yet By virtue of that earth-divinity Thou canst not, love, forego. For thou art God Unto my spirit, though unto these mine eyes Not visible. The seen by the unseen My soul must reinterpret and thereby. By virtue of the omnipresence proven Even of thy person whence I am fled away, Acknowledge and proclaim thee to thyself Beloved ; and therefore as love within these all To constitute the world thou wouldst cast down. Deep still sustaineth deep : though I lose thee. 46 NATURE AND RELIGION XI The noon-hour passeth and I again descend Down unto mire and meanness by thy doom ; Doom'd to the patient toil, the faring forth Through ways of wilderness. But not as erst The dim bewilderment. The rage uncouth, The multitudinous primordial sin, Even by its systematic ordering seen, Intendeth thee above, beyond yet through Each beast and branch ; not as in primal fact Bestial nor brutal, but as spiritual Each creature of the nether, elder birth Intending God and therefore one with Him. 47 LOVE POEMS XII And therefore one with thee as each must fail To achieve thee and thereby defineth thee The hifinite in Whom are these at all Creatures of meaning and intelligence Intelligible to the searching soul. Lo ! in obedience, love, unto thy will Supreme, am I fled unto wilderness, Unfearing and unloathing these that yet Are not thou and are full of fear and blame. I as these lost, acknowledging my fall And frenzy of aspiration thwart, am fled To wilderness from thee. And thou art here. 48 NATURE AND RELIGION XIII Beloved, for at thy word the universe Fell ruin'd. The mountains to the plains ran down Molten ; the seas dried up ; and all in ash Confused lay for world-bewilderment. I alone, stricken, I alone remain'd Of all God's souls in the world to weep at thee And drown earth's devastation. But, behold ! An ordering anew, a beauty born Of desolation as had never been ! Ah ! for, beloved ! thy face of deity* Unveil'd ! and in thy naked hand the sword ! And this my soul, as every soul, self-known ! 49 LOVE POEMS XIV World, yea, hath come full circle. At the first Said He : " Let there be light." And thereupon Within the fume of the vapors burn'd a flame And show'd them to themselves, that they did part : The nether from the upper : the firmament Established of the fiat. And there was light. — Now through the chaos of the crumbling years Cometh the new creation. At the last The culmination of aspiring earth ; The lift almost to heaven ; birt, from above, The stroke ; the desolation ; and the voice : "Let there be Light." Beloved! and there — art Thou. 50 PURGATORY AND JUDGMENT PURGATORY AND JUDGMENT I LOVE, I have been admitted to thy life Anew ; thereby myself being wrought alive Well-nigh as formerly or e'er thy face Was veil'd e'en by that fire which, flaring it, O' the instant slew the soul down out of me. Alive as formerly ; and yet with life Extinct. As one who, lifted from the grave By grace, is call'd before the eternal Judge Through His purgation of a thousand years : I moving, breathing yet within the grave My thousand years ; whilst over me my judge Denies life's privilege to plead of life. 53 LOVE POEMS II It were as though all witness of my soul Ceased at this crisis when my soul awakes For fresh performance ; I, even as one dumb Despite lip-motion simulate of speech ; And thou, ignoring all that tells of life Now teeming, toiling in me : whilst thy heart Ponders the sear'd leaves of that screed o' the hope Now fallen forever : ponders, nor approves ; And dooms the lost soul to be lost soul still For all its turmoil, all its potency Of reformation through thy purging grace. — How canst thou judge of life in a thing dead ? 54 PURGATORY AND JUDGMENT III FOR I have been denied to speak of love, Which love was, is, and shall be my life all. And therefore am as dead within my grave Though lifted in all else to share with thee Life ; am as one thus call'd beyond the grave To soul-purgation, yet who may not plead Of the regenerance of his very soul — So misseth absolution ! Tore thy face Must I stand loveless ; though not blamelessly Might any man approach thee (Thou of Love !) Save rapt in light of like divinity ! And thus am 1 foredoom'd as one who sins. 55 LOVE POEMS IV Yet is my judge august, and being all-wise Shall search me deeper than my soul may know, The depths shall not be hid though I be dumb ; Nor love, denied love's utterance, fail of speech In love's obedience to thy dear decree ! Thou wilt not, love, mistake the sombre mien Of him who living dwelleth as the dead For death at heart ; nor fail to feel within My shroud a vivid fire of sacrifice Consuming, sanctifying the true man Beyond all peradventure of such crime Of sacrilege. For thou wilt see the soul. 56 PURGATORY AND JUDGMENT And shall I dread that thou shalt see and hear That which is in me ? Yea, though save for thee Forsooth were 1 some monstrous mould of sin, Love yet were some salvation ; and a love Toward thee directed and concluding thee (Such love as mine) were stuff that maketh man — Though scorn'd, yea, and rejected, spurn'd, cast down — But little lower than the angels ; ay, Crown'd as with glory and power, half-divine ! Love, in the scathless confidence of truth Must I approach thee though no stain were hid ! Though Hell were in me, thou shouldst learn it Love. 57 LOVE POEMS VI Therefore I scarce need seek to hide my face From thee for shame of any sacrilege. I can but pray thy judgment, searching deep, Shall see as I see as I look within. For there within seem many truths of thee, And many universes of thy soul, And many unions of thy heart and strength Mysteriously through every hour of earth : That all is sanctity. Were sacrilege Such victory ? Were my self -searching soul Blasphemous with acknowledgment of God (Though God condemn me !) as its self self-known ? 58 PURGATORY AND JUDGMENT VII And if, inspired with sense of thee within, The mute soul mutely agonizing speak Some syllable of godship to its God, Some irrepressible momentary lapse In witness of its worship — shall its doom Burst straightway for such insubordinance ? Beloved, were I but raised to thy right hand O' the wonder-seat, how sure the ways of God Were then the ways of man, regenerate man ! But now, thy mercy ! if my lips must feel Some suffocation of the sepulchre Although my breast breathe at thy dread command. 59 LOVE POEMS VIII Nay, were not any service, which might show Thee to thyself within me, in some least A reconciling of the rift 'twixt God And His creation that belongeth to Him ? Sith God thou art then this thy kingdom of The spirit were of thee self- responsibly : And this thy condemnation of the world A contradiction passing hope of peace. If in my service some obedience Haply seem wanting (which may troth forfend !), Perchance in me some power of thee prevaileth Over thyself to prove thy world thine own ! 60 PURGATORY AND JUDGMENT IX I KNOW not. -- Wholly yet into thy hands Now I commit my spirit undismayed. No mercy I need ask : for, that myself, Such as I am, am wholly made of thee ; And fair or foul, thy saint or satan, still Am servant, self-essential to thy state. Into thy presence must I fearlessly Pass and be proven, fronting thee as one Who finds at last that peace, that comprehension, Beyond all understanding. I though mute Must speak thee to thyself. Though thou condemn I shall not be sequester 'd from thy soul. 61 LOVE POEMS Therefore, through whatsoever pools of peace Thou purgest me, shall I my thousand years, Yea, to the sounding of the trumpet, lie In silent ecstasy for sight of God. The vision melts not though the tomb be sealed. And at the head and feet of me, I know. Are guardians, ever with the speed of thought Swift to be pleading at the throne of thee, With intercession for who will not plead. The thousand years of thine eternity Are as an instant. From the tomb my song Already riseth as the morning shines. 62 VEDAS VEDAS ADITI — THE NATURE OF LIFE Men may not, though by inmost inquiry, By prayer and offering at thy secret shrine, Impenetrate this mystery of breath, Of love's beginning and the source of worlds. We can but feel, some flaw first must have been That separateth self or world from thee. We can but call thee Nature ; and be known As to ourselves ; but cannot yet know thee. We hymn thee as we sense thee, stream or sky, Cloud, tempest, earth, or star, or sun, though none Proven of thy substance, none divinely thee ! — Beloved, art thou then nought, yea, self-unknown ? 65 LOVE POEMS DYAUS — THE FIRMAMENT Within thy universal frame are set All star-stuffs and all suns, establish'd vast And wonderful. But, love, beyond aught else This land of India proclaimeth thee. And thou art fashioner of all beneath Thy vault ; and in thine image are all things Fashioned that anywise may move and know. Wherefore art thou, in monstrance of Dyaus The over-arching firmament, self-known Even through thy creatures : and thyself art whole. — May thy vast wonder-working through my spirit, As India, proclaim thee Fashioner ! 66 VEDAS PRITHIVI— THE EARTH For, though these heavens are wide above the earth Riftless, all incorrupted of the flaw Of heart's humanity, yet were they nought, A nescience and some void, chaotic, save Even for these sufferant mountains and these plains Half-parch'd yet springing : utterly thy work. These art thou as by works thou shalt be known — Earth of this Indian spiritual drought Thine act-reality. And thus to earth, To dust, to labor, to the pathos of them In hourly, iterated tragedy 1 turn and worship, naming them thy name. 67 LOVE POEMS VARUNA — THE DARK SKY Still above earth, yet as some soul of it, Thine immemorial mind and influence, This inspiration of thy nightly stars ! Over all earth an hush is consecrate To rest-renewal and to dream ; but, lo ! Close in the tree-tops, earth's own imagery Of stars : the multiple glow-fly shimmering ! Love, Thy distantness for guide divine ; and, love, Within me love for image of thy lamps' Flickering, as the night-breeze in the boughs Sways ever the fiery wing-wisps. Thus I lie Uncertain, blind save to the vast of thee. 68 VEDAS USHAS — THE DAWN Night hath been, ay, upon the Indian plain Night ; and the ambient peaks majestical Have been but blacknesses along the stars. Blotting their brilliance, proving them aloof. And India lay beneath them lightlessly. Now art thou come, with paling of the stars Before a nearer brilliance, thou the Dawn, Disclosing in thyself the world enorb'd And wonderful, and every hill a flame Of orient increase, guardian now and source Of field's fecundity. And in my soul Wide India worships as it wakes and works. 69 LOVE POEMS SOMA — THE ENLIGHTENING Yonder the wakening of the roseate hills, And, lo ! the warming of the vales, and now The surging into gold of these green plains And golden-silver of these quickening streams ! And now the myriad humankind astir Turn to the sacred waters ; and the shrines Send myriad murmurings of the heart devout At mount in air unto the day's high gates Wide-oped, exultant. And the fervid draught Of thine elixir courseth through all things, Soma, fit beverage of the soul and strength Pour'd of thy spirit granting this new day ! 70 VEDAS SURYA — THE SUN Thine the new day, as thou hast granted it. And thine the labor as the enlighten'd earth And every people of thy teeming land Work in the name of thee because of light. Light on the lofty mountains, and at last Light in the rugged vales and fields of tilth. Light in the water-courses through and through Resplendent. And upon the barrens stark Of this my parched but high-uplifted heart A breadth of barren light ! — I thank thy heart That yields such searching sight, illumining All India the while it withereth it. 71 LOVE POEMS AGNI — THE PASSION OF FIRE FOR Agni art thou and a sacrifice : Insufferable by heat of energy Exhausting these that would be of thy life. Thine this afflatus that, updrawn to thee, Would live by thee and therefore perisheth Consumed, half-ashen by the growth of it. One sacrifice, a furnace as of flame Unto thy scarification lies the soul. This India, this Indian quick heart Of me that feareth whilst it fain were thine. This knowledge of thee is earth's agony ; This fire of thee within, the spirit's end. 72 VEDAS INDRA — THE SKY OBSCURED And therefore through the smoke of sacrifice A shroud for India, as for my soul A covering for its too naked wrath. Lo ! we have seen thee and been all ablaze Through noon's perfervor, gazing on earth's self Self-known, and through earth-nature on thy self As thou art known unto thyself by works. And we are blinded by excess of sight ; And the hot day doth wane before its hour With fume of the pomp funereal, with dust Of the death-striving and the doom attain 'd. Thou wanest from thy truth, lest love should swoon, 73 LOVE POEMS MARUTS — THE TEMPESTS And with the waning waxeth an untruth Of militant denial, earth and air Convulsed and lightning-rent, thunderous-crush'd With frenzy of dismay that thou art done, Art sheer withdrawn out of the truth of things And self-conceal'd, world wots not how nor where. Enough that truth hath turn'd away, enough That madness hath got hold of us, and we Are rent and rack'd : the spirit hurtling, love, Against itself to dash down love and all Drown'd as in soul's immitigable grief At loss and desolation — losing thee. 74 VEDAS MITRA — THE AFTERMATH Yet where hath been love's insight can be never Mere desolation. For the sense of loss Involves thee still. And this embitter'd clod Of wreck 'd sad earth hath known a noon and thee. The streams are over-brimm'd and every bough Drops sweetness on the wilderness. Earth's sorrow Hath yet fecundity by sense of thee. — The song may come to voice or may not come. In the hush'd evening air perchance may rise New hymn to thine embalming beauty, fresh Praise to thy truth that hath been. Or perchance Shall all things fade voiceless upon the night. 75 LOVE POEMS ASVINS — THE TWILIGHT Between the doubtful lights lies India ; *Twixt daytime and the darkness. Now the clouds Are slow roll'd back ; and where thy sun hath set Lingers the serious saffron ; and the stars Come one by one. And all is as if day Had never been, save for earth's sadness still And shroud of vapor. And the evensong Comes not. — As thou seemst lost out of the world, What were to fill the song or give it goal ? Who art thou that thou knowest not thyself By works : who art thou that thou knowest not love ? What were thy name but Dusk — spoke doubtfully ? 76 VEDAS YAMA — THE NATURE OF DEATH As thou wast ere the being of all things, Aditi, so art thou soul's aim and end : Yama, the course of time beyond all years. As thou art Nature, art thou more than life Or love, that which death-dusk but openeth. Though we be by this mystery of self Debarr'd from thee, yet, being but emanate Of thy self-involution, must we come Back to the nought and nescience of thy name. Beloved, shall all of wonder life hath wrought Despairingly be thus annihilate ? Or shalt thou wake and learn thyself- love's world ? 77 HELLENICS HELLENICS THE yEGEAN SEA I BELOvfeo ! I saw a cloud o'er Samothrace. Behind it streaming flew refulgent robes Steep'd of the setting sun whose rays, conceal'd Yet saturating as with liquid light, Gave glory. And the very shape thereof Was glory. For above the purpled isle That cloud, procumbent to the sweep o' the wind And trailing splendor, yet uprear'd a front With outlook ample and an arm held forth Bearing, yea, somewhat very like a Voice : Itself the Victory ! — And Greece hath said • Its prayer and prophecy, its Word of thee. 80 HELLENICS II PatmOS might hold me or old Pergamon, Ephesian Artemis stretch forth a hand To claim a kinship if of trust, self-born, In some divinity, some home for man And hope of present peace beyond the years. Even poor Troy hath treasure of a kind For him who battling though against the gods Sinks fighting manfully still fill'd with faith That soul indomitable shall yet sustain The song of potency, the poetry Qf heroism, fate-defiant : aye Some wonder, some example of thy name. 81 LOVE POEMS PARNASSOS 1, AT the centre of the world of old, To thee, the centre of a world to-day — Thy world and mine as thou hast made it ! Love, A world sad and austere, so suitable To faiths departed, deities long dead. I at the old Kastalian spring, to thee Fountain and sibyl of a sweeter truth (If awful thou, yet not inexorable) Nearer to utterance by each breath of thee. May thy prophetic omen, sinister Indeed, yet none less worshipful, inspire My tongue to this high serious hymn of trust ! 82 HELLENICS II The snows are near around me, at my feet The ruins of as sage authority As ever guarded man by pagan might. Nothing remaineth of it save the snow And some scarce-still-decipherable slab Whence issued voices of the gods to men : Mere stone now and the everlasting cold. Thou hast desired of me that I should be As that dull ruin or these speechless snows. Yet, shall the voice of faith be stopp'd, shall soul Not burst anew into some wiser song Sweeter for more self-knowledge by this pain ? 83 LOVE POEMS HELIKON 1 ParNASSOS neighboring and Helikon Not far, I turn me to that Hippokrene Caird Hellas : history of ceaseless strife, Self-wreck and self-despite, yet over all That high seat of the Muses, lofty place Of eminent understanding, reverence And proud acceptance of the destiny : A soul without a savior, yearning toward The god-impassible, yet figuring A fairer insight of the God-made-man ! 1 drink of it and take the destiny Of Hellas to prefigure thy divine. 84 HELLENICS II The gods are absent in their calm apart. The God was never here. — But let me now Interpret to my soul (so unto thee !) This history by aid of thy benign Conciliation of the strife and woe. Temples and cities are there ; names of gods For implication of the name of thee ; Triumphs, and falls in turn of each from strength The city or the god — though over all The beauty and the benison. Be this Thine answer by thine oracle : *' Yea, live, ''That Hellas' beauty teach thee more of me ! " 85 LOVE POEMS EPIDAURUS I What though their God of Healing may have fail'd A thousand times ? The sick soul yet must come To any sign of comfort, to seek there The strength anew for travail undismayed. And to the precinct of the healing god 1 came to ease me of that grievous hurt Which only thou canst ease. And there I slept In the temple and had vision (as have slept Thousands before me and had vision) — thee So mine ineffably, so passing kind I knew it was a dream. And I awoke And straight inscribed the vision on a stone. 86 HELLENICS II And, till the dream come true (as now 't is truth Of union deeplier than this bitterness), Am I an exile, wanderer accursed With desolation gnawing at the heart ; Knowing mine home, yet ever barr'd from it. Shall I, like Mykensean chief of old (Himself how eager, how soul-sick of war !), Dare a return unto the hearth lessness Call'd home, to find some seeming welcome there Reluctant welcome, but a dagger sheathed ; Thy smile compell'd but to confuse this heart And take it by surprise and pierce it through ? ^7 LOVE POEMS MYKEN>E Thy mercy hath refrain 'd from piercing through An heart worn aged, though the world 's yet young, In service of thee. Though my wandering seems Interminable, yet mine early soul Yieldeth anew some relic of that dawn When life was sweetest by the birth of thee ; And proud emprise unto earth's humblest craft Lent dignity, lent continence through all The superabundance, self-exuberance In first awakening unto beauty. Dear, Truce to contention ; yield thee, of thy strength ! For I am weak and would not be at war. 88 HELLENICS II I AM not of such stuff as these of old Who sought contention for the motion of it, Feeling no incongruity in power Self-poised by strain-imposed rigidity Expressive of the tension, strenuous stroke That knew no peace save in the lust of death. I know no lust of death. I fain would live; And only war by this the weakness of me, Desiring peace, remembering the joy Of that which seem'd peace when the soul was young. — E'en these did fail at last from strength for strife. The sceptre pass'd into another hand. LOVE POEMS ARGOS I Yet is the sceptre wielded still by thee (Mistress of wide adventure, wonder-queen !), Compelling man to *' build, equip, launch forth *'His foresight'*, to encompass mightier songs Than those of hearthstone and the high-built walls Of palace frowning on the plain of home. Fertility of resource, cunning sleight Of hand and intellect thou callest forth For chronicle and rhapsody to bind (With beauty that is epic) at a birth The thousand isles of men, the races of An hundred cities, celebrant of life. 90 HELLENICS II What though the tale be myth, what though no Troy Nor ethnic oath were anywise of thee — My truth, as my remembrance ? If the dream Of the seer unify these many minds Of men's cross-purpose, build unto thy praise An eminence of marvel-minstrelsy, T is ample, 'tis the substance founding all. To thee, then, this insistence on the truth Of the fire-flash of mountain-soul to soul (Which thou deniest) announcing to the world The accomplish'd fact of unity, at once Avenging shame and flaring : " Greece is .born ! " 91 LOVE POEMS OLYMPIA 1 FOR thou didst at the first avenge for me Old shames upon the world by yielding me A new life, purpose and performance toward The sacredness of thee ; when all before Was chaos, wreckage of a fall of gods Whom no strength union'd at the last to save — Mere blackness and confusion — clear'd by thee. The naked giant limbs lay toss'd and heap'd 'Neath Pelion under Ossa, if so be ; But unregenerate, unreconciled, Writhing and torturing to throes earth all. But thou didst order me to health and strength. 92 HELLENICS II And Shalt thou order nought save health and strength To be Greece and to teach men there is One, Beyond and through ? No deeplier-knitted bond Than this of bodily capacities Beyond the nations, knit and whole but by Accomplishment as mindlessness may do ? No steadfast facing of the mystery Of me and thee, no resolution of it, At worst, by insight of an one-in-each Mutual by some absolute symmetry ? — Turn we from acme of the earlier Greece To see what still an almost-soul could do ! % LOVE POEMS ATHENS I It was not by Olympian Zeus alone That Greece essay'd the wonder-unity ; But by that splendor sprung full-arm'd of him, Athena, matron of the mounting mind, Inceptress of the intellect that knows Of thee and thine and may embody thee In works of marvel and a high delight ; Though dwelling scarce in thee nor, as thy soul Permeant with creative sympathy, Beyond all gods, interpreter of them. She but interprets as a man may feel And see, who stands within the pale of death, 94 HELLENICS II Bewilder'D and self-hostile, seeking but Defiance and escape by masking death In petty permanence of lifeless stone. — There is an art un-Grecian, an insight Of soul's identity, through sacrifice, Achieving self-eternal permanence By constancy of alterance on and on Through service and salvation ever new. This art I 'd bring thee, who hast proven art But life beyond death's possibility : Truth love-embodied. Alkestis, Greece' great saint So near achieved, so barely miss'd, that goal ! 95 LOVE POEMS SPARTA I Ah ! but endurance, failing in the stone Perchance, else in the tragedy of fate Swept by the futile fate-catastrophe Beyond the plain life-problem (and the soul Thus proven, by reversion to itself, Inly supreme and substance of all fate) — Endurance as the maxim of the soul Essay'd experiment and nobly won. At worst, world-reputation ; that, were I But ** Spartan ", thou shouldst never hear the wail Of the vital agony, but go thy way Ignorant of the vulpine tooth and claw ! 96 HELLENICS II 1 HAVE been Spartan, were the half but told. Yet like that sterner people I am come To helplessness, destruction finally ; And by my nature must make song of it, Ennobling desolation and dismay With still some psean : though the grave at last Be mark'd but : " He, in battle ". I would fain Fall uncomplaining ; yet believe that Greece Hath possibility of splendor still Beyond these mountains' melancholy ; still A vale upspringing : though Taygetos Guard nothing save some lingering memory. 97 LOVE POEMS THEBES I Endurance yet can be an ignominy, Indeed, an opportunist lingering Of energy, a biding till the time Serve and the man, that after centuries Of insignificance shall surge in sort A short-lived power, and the swift years seem True splendor till the slow long season come Anew of namelessness and indolence. Shall any stew of stupor sensuous, Stirr'd by one passing impulse, stand for Greece Epaminondas, after Perikles, Be figure of the pagan prophecy ? 98 HELLENICS II Nay, from that failure of Euripides To speak a perfect wisdom, must the fall Of Greece, even as the failure of my soul From thee, be mark'd unto thy chronicling — Some flickering, some crude Aristotle still Deciphering the riddle put by her Who sat beside the way and did devour All failure for its self-acknowledged doom. Dear, I avow the failure : am as Thebes The briefly powerful to mouth of thee A moment ; ere thy sphinx eat of my heart, Derisive of love's ill-conceived reply. 99 LOVE POEMS KORINTH 1 And were it nobler than to aim at nought Save voyage as for market-trafficking In quest of selfish gain, for barren meed Rendering world service but unwittingly ? Fain would I render world no service such As, openly oblivious of thee, Comes unaware, unzealous from the hand That looks not, ay, beyond its hoarded coin, Its comfort and its vain caparison. Fain would I serve even Hermes for the sake Of service : else admit my soul for lost. My sense of thee misfeatured at the birth. 100 HELLENICS II I FANCY, some who served the sordid god In Greece' degeneration felt as I The degradation from the soul's estate Of worship, sought indeed some solace in The name of mystery — if missing it None less by sure debasement in the choice Of her to whom the offering was made. Some cult here linger'd with an early name Call'd mystic mainly : though a last resort, A shame and putrefaction. — So, I pass To Aphrodite } No ! Her priestess-crew Knew nothing of the holy theme of thee. 101 LOVE POEMS ELEUSIS 1 Along the sweetness of the sacred way, Through blossoming wide fields and sunlit farms Of almond, olive and the pasturing flocks ; The sea beside and, all around, the hills ; With voice of the lark a-wing and bells of sheep Tinkling ; lo ! hither, therefore are we come — Eleusis, the Ineffable ; and we stand. Thy soul and I, even at the source of grace As Hellas sought or found it in her gods. The sea beside, and, all around, the hills : We stand, thy soul and I, and dream at last Deep in the dear Demetrian Mysteries. 102 HELLENICS 11 Men may not know their meaning. Men have said The springtime as it cometh and is fair Teacheth a hope which herein was revealed To the initiate ; and men have said Sad autumn and the earth's descent to sleep Taught of perpetuance : but we may not know. Enough that votive monuments inscribed Testify to the healing and the help Within those hearts that still envisaged death Yet came here for the comfort. And I too Testify to the comfort and declare Thy mystery ; and save me by thy soul. 103 LOVE POEMS DELPHI UNTO this temple (as my soul to thee !) Repair 'd the cities and the thousand isles For counsel, and received (or seem'd to sense) An insight supernatural to guide Each undertaking. Never went away A worshiper without some wisdom earn'd To dwell with it and be more man thereby. Sometimes 't was desperate, else double-voiced, The maxim ; and the man went forth to fall Or not fall, wiser by the proof alone : Yet reverent through all bewilderment, Resolute that the oracle be truth. 104 HELLENICS II The altar of the god of loftiest light, Apollo, whence the oracle arose ! Lo ! I have vow'd me unto thee for life Or death, sworn on this altar by my love I And unto thee, O Thou my Pythian ! Offered myself, fiird with a living faith. — Thine oracle hath spoke : '*Thou mayest live *'And yet mayest not have faith *' —ambiguously ; For life and hope are one. I ask again, Fill'd with the faith anew : " Declare to me ! " — And so shall still demand of thee till thou Sayest, '* Thine hope may live ! " — or, ** Thou Shalt die!" IO5 LOVE POEMS THE IONIAN SEA 1 I HAVE not seen Olympus. But the gods Dwell doubtless there afar as in old days. Christ hath not come, nor any ethic myth Displaced their calm abandonment of man. Man may, as Hellas all-time hath abode, Endure beyond their ken though every breath And work of man intended to their praise Cry unto heaven for the truth to fall. Greece have I seen, from sacred shrine to shrine Made offering ; and still I see not thee Unless in mystery. Yet I depart With faith as formerly on homeward seas. 106 HELLENICS II Unto the chief this islet was as home Long-sought though hostile to a stranger-eye ; Ithaka ; nothing but an ocean-rock Wave-rack*d, scarce life-sustaining — save that here Abode a welcome, faithfulness hard-proved And found not wanting. Though my wandering Be world-wide, yet in me that faithfulness Abides as in her breast that sat at home : Thyself that home : most, that the wonder-isles Of Greece seduced to brief sojourning-place. Be but that home ! Answer thou to my prayer : '*Be welcome, wanderer; for thy faith's sake." 107 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE THE PILGRIM 1 The visiting of each far holy place Throughout earth's wide intelligence of thee; The entering within strange faiths of men Anent thy fair familiar sacredness : This is my portion ; driven forth, with all The world to choose where I might but forget, Haply ; where I might learn anew but thee ! Lo ! from my youth have I still visited In adoration and have still beheld (Despite the madness of men's fantasy) * The meaning of thee in the metaphor, The poetry and godliness of things. 110 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II Behold a folk maddest of fantasy, Fiird strangeliest with the wildest among dreams Of thee, confused, multiform ! And my life Fiird erst with sanity by strength of thee Is as their mysteries. — Shall I believe Metempsychosis, that myself hath been This mythus ; and my knowledge of thee, nought ? Or shall the self, facing the face uncouth Of these monstrosities within my soul. Impenetrate the mystery, inform With better wisdom of the lore of thee The shifting palimpsest ; and prove it truth ? Ill LOVE POEMS THE PARSEES I The heaven-sent floods are far too clean for flesh Contamination of the vital earth Were vulgar sacrilege by my coarse clay ; The eternal elements of the embalming flame Require for fit associate but a soul ! — Wilt thou thus that my body (of motion barr'd, Balk'd the live splendor of a love-born strength Of trust in cosmic consanguinity, Spurn'd of the spirit of a passion of thee) Be as the unentomb'd and naked dead Exposed for carrion to the carrion fowl, Picked to the bone's uncognizable dust ? 112 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II The air above is choked with maws of prey, The earth is widely as a charnel-room Bespatter'd with the clots of offal food. Some fire is needed if to purge the heart That knows what worketh in the silence there : That knows what reeketh between earth and heaven Under the sun because no spirit it hath. — Yet that which reeketh knoweth not its shame. And that which shrinketh from the place unclean Need never taste of death while still it shameth, And knoweth as I know the passion I bear thee For fire, associate fitly with my soul. 113 LOVE POEMS THE MUSSULMANS I There is one God, not great above the rest But sole, conclusive of divinity : Allah-Illah-Akbar, the Jealous One. — No vague Brahman is He; but Jahveh's pride, Transfused effectual retribution still. Informing one alone, the chosen one Muhammad, sword and trumpet-voice of Him. There is one Word, not mythic-mild aloof. But once to earth descended in the wrath Here by my heart interpreted, as erst By mouth of him, Muhammad, to all men. — Wherefore my spirit worships toward thy West. 114 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II Ah ! but a tale hath been of Him Who came Not trumpet- voiced, not sword and scourge of God, But kindly comforting His humankind ? Yea, thou hast heard that where is worship, there Love prayeth ; and where only love hath pray'd Divinity is proved in answering prayer ? — Life for a life ; soul for a soul ; yea, love For love : the law of Jahveh as we both Acknowledge His primal authority I Life, soul and love I give thee : for thou hast them. Life, soul and love shall prove thee by. the law Allah, conclusive of divinity. 115 LOVE POEMS THE MOGULS I LO ! but an error fatal as profound ! — A dome so beautiful were sweeter far Than any Paradise. No soul enshrined In such a mausoleum e'er shall see God, unless God inhabit too the tomb. — Sooth 'twere as well (were soul at all, without Thee, to remain unto the body dead). It were as well to rest eternally Alluring haply God, with earth at peace ; Nor seek to rise ! Yet rather would I writhe In blistering ash, abhorrent still to thee : That I might strive and lift to thee at last ! 116 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II Nay, for a world which is a world of thee Were beautiful as any Palace Tomb. Though we be rust we need not further rise Who fain would make for beauty with our hand Assured that God inhabits though we die. Yea, he that knoweth thee need never die, But worketh beauty with unending breath. — Peace to Jehan imperial and his soul ! A man inspired of beauty, knowing God Even in the tomb and working as at peace. For all earth's turmoil ! — Wherefore with a peace As this pure tomb shall be thy world to me. 117 LOVE POEMS THE JAINS A PEACE hath been conceived of harmlessness, Restraint from rendering least injury, For reason of the sanctity of each Least instance of the spirit that is life. To foster, nowise thwart — it might be so Were Spirit, which is Life, the same in each As is the self ; were every truth as mine By my believing, and world's will but one. — Shall I lose hold of whatso truth I owe For fear to overwhelm a truth less sure, Less absolute than this my love for thee ? Beloved, must I then cease from suing thee ? 118 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II There is a peace, couldst thou believe in it, Of mutual sacrifice ; I grant thee so. There is a peace whose perfect prosperousness Of will within will, life within life, lives By reconciliation constantly Of thine not-mine, by give and take of death Life's sustenance. But thou wilt not. And therefore Must my love harm thee till my soul shall cease. — There is no peace of mere passivity Despite thy soul's new doctrine. Who would serve thee Shall not forbear ; must never lose from life Assertion of love's menace from all-time. 119 LOVE POEMS THE GURUS I And is there nothing new beneath the sun ? Hath all been said and written ; that we now Repeat old formulas or fall from thee ? Hath all been learn 'd of wisdom and the ways Of holiness, no utterance of thine Ever to come to tell new paths of truth ? Some inspiration hath been — here be men With memory of each symbol of the screed Sacred with wisdom of the serious past : Of thee much hath been written. — Yet much else Shall be. And all, Evangel, yea, as Law, Enshrined in worship shall remain to me. 120 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II IT may be that these too expect a day Of final revelation unto earth ; Their tri-une, riding on the clouds on high In vision as the apocalypse — I know not. I know but that thy silence may endure To the last syllable ; and recorded time Hold not the speech that shall transfigure me. Still is the silence holy, memorable, Teaching thy way of charity as faith Unto my soul that cannot take thee false. — They murmur of past passion ; but I suffer Fresh crucifixions in thy dumbness now. 121 LOVE POEMS THE SIKHS 1 Deep speech there surely hath been ; and therethrough Hath been initiation. Therearound Are temples builded ; and thereon, with brow Bent to the holy scripture, must I pore Obedient, chastened if still suffering. And all who read therein shall be compelled By virtue of the book to render awe Unto its sacredness. Its mystic words Shall burn before the nations, being of light. Though none should comprehend. And comprehension Doth my love still afford within thy shrine ! — Wherefore art thou not dumb where speech hath been. 122 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II The mighty murmur of repeating o*er Thy solemn text falls on the inward sense From thousand voices hourly of the heart. The soul is all within thy temple walls Ensymbol'd, and the open book contained Is God visibly present unto me. Thou mayest scoff : ** He understandeth not *'The slightest syllable upon the book. ** His temple is a tomb wherein my truth ** Lies stifled if so be it truth at all." Beloved, the very gold upon these walls Is wrought by thee and burnish 'd by thy breath. 123 LOVE POEMS THE MENDICANTS I An half-whole ministry — to ask of earth The earthly sustenance, that so the soul By meditation without worldly care May cumulate redemption for the world ! An half -Whole ministry ! How may the spirit Dependent upon earth for earthly alms Be mighty to incorporate through earth E'en such wan wisdom, innocent of things ? Might I by taking thought but on thy word Redeem world to thy best divinity Of saving love, who for thy least of grace Am beggar, famish 'd for the moment's food ? 124 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II Within the spirit I may beg of thee Indeed ; but strive to stand responsible In mine intelligence of earth and thee. Mine the high burden of enlightening thee, If so be, to reciprocal ministrance, Each heart in heart, feeding the mutual soul. Mine the almsgiving from the fulness of Thine inspiration. And if so at last Mine hand be beggar'd by thy riches in it. Then hath the spirit no more need of alms. Then earth and thou, my sustenance as care, Absolve from mendicancy whom they save. 125 LOVE POEMS THE BRAHMINS 1 There are who arrogate unto their caste A preordained salvation, scarce of thee Nor of themselves, yet yielded in thy name. Yet am I of the twice-born : I have been Born of myself and once again of thee. Were any further birth efficient toward Redemption ? Might some strange power, in thy name. Command performance of a ritual Unmeaning ? Might a derogation from Standard not set by thee debar from bliss ? These are but once-born, born unto themselves To perish by their misbegotten rules. 126 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II Yet who am I to arrogate to self Judgment superior to this priest-craft's power Of self-insistent insight ? Whence my claim To some sole comprehension of thy will ? Nought save mine innermost dependence on thee Commandeth inspiration. In myself Am I but born to unintelligence And failure still to apprehend of truth. It is the second birth that openeth The heavens and declareth deity To eyes enravish'd of unwonted things. And since that birth had truth seem'd as mine own. 127 LOVE POEMS THE VISHNITES 1 Our life preserveth not itself from day To day save by some power not ourselves Preserving over us, some Permanence Permeant through the novelty of worlds And their decay, some godliness which Is. I, might my breath be taken once again And yet again, might any pulse of me Be mine beyond the momentary throb Save by thy guardianship, thy sacredness Ensphering hour by hour and making Soul This coming and departing momently ? — And didst thou erst create : and shalt destroy ? 128 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II FOR by thy godliness art thou enwholed, And needs art that which Was, which brought to pass The spirit of me ; needs art also that Which Shall Be, by whose being comes an end. Creator ! therefore, and Destroyer, too ! — Yet, if thou art that inspiration whence Life Cometh to abiding, as that cause By whose self-operation wins the soul Its best annihilation, were my soul Aught else than thou ? Thy power, beyond ourselves ? I feel thee for my substance ; sense my frame Eterne by mine acknowledgment of thee ! 129 LOVE POEMS THE SIVITES I No life abides save still to be destroy'd. Annihilation only shall endure — The universal, godly and supreme. Though may the soul seem fair, the gods but kind, Tendeth the soul unto the void, the gods Harbor an ill-intention : till in time Is time fulfill' d and death is God alone. Thou, didst thou seem so sheltering, did thy speech Suffer interpretation of good-will. That life seem'd of itself an holiness God-like enduring in the name of thee ? And art thou That which endeth everything ? 130 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II So be it. In the godliness of thee Informing still with splendor him I am, Am I the Universal and my death Nought but a reproduction lest the spirit Be stagnate with entirety of truth. If thou destroyest must thou too create And thus alone preserve in endless life The heart that is thy substance. Whence thy power, Destroying utterly all faith and hope Within me, shall ennoble hope and faith Unendingly to every moment's surge Within me of thy recreativeness. 131 LOVE POEMS THE YOGIS 1 Whoso may still desire of the world Fair intercourse, who findeth his delight In earth's activity and shares with earth The rumor and wonder of all changing things, Is not as these who mortify their hope And make denial with their daily breath. Have they some subtler hope, yet some delight Of hush'd appreciation cheating still The pretence of indifference and death ? Are they as I desireless, yea, yet moved With adoration ? It might be — for I Have died unto the world, who live for thee ! 132 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II Why sit they though so utterly unmanned, Inaction'd, and they have thee at the heart ? Know I not adoration, and therethrough Am passionately moved, mightily moving In mine appreciation thy sweet world Of splendor, fit for service of the soul ? They have not thee at heart, they are not fill'd With worship which requireth every hour The fresh thanksgiving, the unending prayer By enterprise divinely dedicate. These have no secret of salvation ; these Are dead to the world, because they know not thee, 133 LOVE POEMS THE SUTTEES 1 Yet it is plausible that there hath been Some death in heaven, and thy heaven-in-earth Is widow'd of its lord and calleth as A thing forsaken on who will not hear. This wrestling of the spirit with such truths As thou vouchsafest (strange, bewildering By misresponse unto the spirit's need !), This outcast wandering without the pale Of any place made paradise by thee, This spirit-ruinous mystery but bears One lesson at the last : / knew not thee ; And best were nought before aught else I know. 134 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II FOR, failing thee — if failure be between In any guise, as thou alone canst say ? — For, failing thee, are these things in their right Delusions real, typic monstrosities Of faith, to overthrow all sanity. Without thy pure evangel must the world Perish from sanctity and virtue feel No warrant in its dark idolatry. The sword and scourge of God, the carrion crew Of offal-feeders were a fairer faith Than aught self-born to widow'd India. Without thy heaven hath earth no pilgrim-place. 135 LOVE POEMS THE DEVOTEES My pilgrimage forsooth hath not been long : Only a life-time from that birth in thee Till now an end as here I lay me down By Ganga and shall pass upon his stream. The bitterness of dust hath pass'd away Before me, and upon the holy ghats My spiced woods and incense stand prepared. May the fierce furnace of the spirit be swift And firmly fatal ; and so thoroughly May all be ashen that the scarce-scorch 'd wave Shall cleanly cover the polluted place Of death and wash earth of the last footfall. 136 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II My soul hath many ways perplex'd herself With these monstrosities of dream within Her sphere of pilgrimage ; and many ways Hath dream'd unto herself an holier truth Of thee and of thy ministry through each Dismay and each delusion : but none else Bringeth conviction than this dream at last Of uttermost purgation as by flame And streams of Himavat. Here life and creed Are one, here hope and truth indifferently Devote self to thy service. Shalt thou say : ** Ay, offer thee to death : and find thy peace *' ? 137 LOVE POEMS THE UNBELIEVERS Nay, but is not mine heart even as this heart Of India which, failing to awake To ways of resurrection, calleth as That ** thing forsaken " on its dream of thee ? Can any death be cure where only faith Cureth the spirit — and that faith were dead Even with the common perishing of clay ? Lo ! from these sands where Ganga in the sea Perisheth, one last prayer ascendeth ; one Need of thy love's enlightenment vouchsafed Prevents the degradation, still precludes Peace by the desperate soul-sacrifice. 138 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II The Oriental Mystery remains Within me of this nescience of thee : Of nothingness, annihilation still If by the burning ghat : whilst yet the spirit Refuseth action, will not self-destroy The dreamer ; but abideth as inane, Unmann'd, unnerved, contemplater of nought. Not from the East, the Void, shall any peace Of insight be achieved ; nor doth in me Thy strength suffice to reconstruct a truth Efficiently demonstrative of thee. — The purpose of my pilgrimage hath fail'd. 139 LOVE POEMS THE DISCIPLE 1 And yet that hope which goeth to defeat Achieveth satisfaction : scarce in my Will, but in thy will by whose breath I am. How might that proselyting in my soul Succeed where inspiration gropes at fault Requiring fresh search at thy perfect fount Of revelation : that I understand ? Shall not this lifting of the face to thee As to a new evangel earn at last The comprehension by the hearkening, The service by the waiting patiently Unto the Pentecostal gift of speech ? 140 AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE II T IS thus that, front to front with falsity, We learn some lack of final faith within. Perceiving earth but dream, we find our dream, That seem'd erstwhile a wakening, but sleep Still, unempower'd through the living world. — Still Eastward ! finding, in the want of thee World-wide amid these unregenerate. The trial and the pathway, present proof Vouchsafed of thy salvation through the years. Not, not the god. But still the God-born word Engirdling earth to tell earth of His name ; That earth, mine earth, may know thee : and be whole ! THE END 141 / Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton &> Co. Cambridge t Mass., U.S. A. EC 1 !§»,