The Vedantin’s Prayer

Spirit Supreme Who musest in the silence of the heart, Eternal gleam, Thou only Art! Ah, wherefore with this darkness am I veiled, My sunlit part By clouds assailed? Why am I thus disfigured by desire, Distracted, haled, Scorched by the fire Of fitful passions, from thy peace out-thrust Into the gyre Of every gust? Betrayed to grief, o’ertaken with dismay, Surprised by lust? Let not my grey Blood-clotted past repel thy sovereign ruth, Nor even delay, O lonely Truth! Nor let the specious gods who ape Thee still Deceive my youth. These clamours still; For I would hear the eternal voice and know The eternal Will. This brilliant show Cumbering the threshold of eternity Dispel, - bestow The undimmed eye, The heart grown young and clear. Rebuke, O Lord, These hopes that cry Page-49 So deafeningly, Remove my sullied centuries, restore My purity. O hidden door Of Knowledge, open! Strength, fulfil thyself! Love, outpour! On the Mountains Immense retreats of silence and of gloom, Hills of a sterile grandeur, rocks that sublime In bareness seek the blue sky’s infinite room With their coeval snows untouched by Time! I seek your solemn spaces! Let me at last Forgotten of thought through days immemorable Voiceless and needless keep your refuge vast, Growing into the peace in which I dwell. For like that Soul unmade you seem to brood Who sees all things emerge but none creates, Watching the ages from His solitude, Lone, unconcerned, remote. You to all Fates Offer an unmoved1 heart and therefore abide, Who seek not, act not, strive not nor rebel. Like you, who are may grow like Him, as wide, Mere, uncreative, imperturbable. 1unchanged 2To be like you, grow like Him, silent, wide. Page-50