I
O white Priest of Eternity, around Whose lofty summit veiling clouds arise Of the earth"s immemorial sacrifice To Brahma in whose breath all lives and dies; O Hierarch enrobed in timeless snows, First-born of Asia whose maternal throes Seem changed now to a million human woes, Holy thou art and still! Be so, nor sound One sigh of all the mystery in thee found.
II
For in this world too much is overclear, Immortal Ministrant to many lands, From whose ice-altars flow to fainting sands Rivers that each libation poured expands.
Too much is known, O Ganges-giving sire; Thy people fathom life and find it dire, Thy people fathom death, and, in it, fire To live again, tho in Illusion"s sphere, Behold concealed as Grief is in a tear.
III
Wherefore continue, still enshrined, thy rites, Tho dark Thibet, that dread ascetic, falls In strange austerity, whose trance appals, Before thee, and a suppliant on thee calls.
Continue still thy silence high and sure, That something beyond fleeting may endure-- Something that shall forevermore allure Imagination on to mystic flights Wherein alone no wing of Evil lights.
IV
Yea, wrap thy awful gulfs and acolytes Of lifted granite round with reachless snows.
Stand for Eternity while pilgrim rows Of all the nations envy thy repose.
Ensheath thy swart sublimities, unscaled.
Be that alone on earth which has not failed.
Be that which never yet has yearned or ailed, But since primeval Power upreared thy heights Has stood above all deaths and all delights.
V
And tho thy loftier Brother shall be King, High-priest be thou to Brahma unrevealed, While thy white sanct.i.ty forever sealed In icy silence leaves desire congealed.
In ghostly ministrations to the sun, And to the mendicant stars and the moon-nun, Be holy still, till East to West has run, And till no sacrificial suffering On any shrine is left to tell life"s sting.
THE BARREN WOMAN
(_Benares_)
At the burning-ghat, O Kali, Mother divine and dread, See, I am waiting with open lips Over the newly dead.
I am childless and barren; pity And let me catch the soul Of him who here on the kindled bier Pays to Existence toll.
See, by his guileless body I cook the bread and eat.
Give me the soul he does not need Now, for conception sweet.
Hear, or my lord and husband Shall send me from his door And take to his side a fairer bride Whose breast shall be less poor.
Oft I have sought thy temples, By Ganges now I seek, Where ashes of all the dead are strewn, And is my prayer not meek?
The ghats and the shrines and the people That bathe in the holy Stream Have heard my cry, O G.o.ddess high, Shall I not have my dream?
The women of Oudh and Jaipur Look on my face with scorn.
Children about their garments cling, To me shall none be born?
The death-fires quiver faster, O hasten, G.o.ddess, a sign, That from this doom into my womb Thy pledge has pa.s.sed, divine.
Woe! there is naught but ashes, Now, and the weepers go.
Lone on the ghat they leave me, lone, With but the River"s flow.
Kali, I ask not jewels Nor justice, beauty nor shrift, But for the lowest woman"s right, A child--tho I die of the gift!
BY THE TAJ MAHAL
Under the Indian stars, Mumtaz Mahal, I am sitting, Watching them wind their silent way Over your wistful Tomb; Watching the crescent prow Of the moon among them flitting, Fair as the shallop that bore your soul To Paradise"s Room.
Under the Indian stars, With palm and peepul about me, With dome and kiosk and minaret Mounting against the sky, I seem to see your face In all the fairness without me; In all the sadness that fills my heart To hear your lover"s cry.
Under the Indian stars I look for your Jasmine Tower, Along the River whose barren bed Lies gray beneath the moon.
And thro its magic doors You seem like a spirit flower, Wandering back from Allah"s bourne To seek for some lost boon.
Under the Indian stars I see you softly moving, Among your jewel-lit maidens there, A sweet and ghostly queen, And the scent of attar flung In your marble font seems proving That pa.s.sion never can die from love, If truly love has been.
Under the Indian stars _He_ comes, "the Shadow of Allah,"
Jehan, the lord of Magnificence, The liege who holds your heart.
The silver doors swing back And alone with him you hallow The amorous night--whose moon has made Such visions in me start.
Under the Indian stars-- But the end of all is moaning!
I hear his dying breath that from Your Tomb shall never die.
For every jasper flower He set in its dream seems loaning To Beauty a grief, Mumtaz Mahal, And unto Fate a sigh.
LOVE"S CYNIC
I
O you poets, ever pretending Love is immortal, pipe the truth!
Empty your books of lies, the ending Of no pa.s.sion can be--Youth.
"Heaven," you breathe, "will join the broken?"
Come, was the Infinite e"er wed, That He must evermore be thinking Of your wedding bed?
II
Pipe the truth! tho it clip the glamour Out of your rhymes and rip your dream.
Do you believe words can enamour Death and dry up Lethe"s stream?