MAYA

A scorching shadow masked as living light,

Earth's smile of painted passion withers now!

But is there hollow on black ravenous hollow

How pass then reveries of angelic wings

Revealing the blind heart of all desire?

Surely some haloed beauty hides within

The mournful spaces of unlustred limbs

To call with secret eyes a perfect Sun

Whose glory yearns across the drouth of hell!

Behind the false glow dreams the epiphany—

But like a face of night implacable

Save to the soul's virginity, the unknown

White fire whose arms enclasp infinitude....

Sri Aurobindo's Comment

"Exceedingly fine. I have marked the best lines. It is a very powerful poetic expression of the idea. It is the poetic intelligence, of course, but the last lines 'the unknown White fire' etc. reach overhead."

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