NIGHT CHILD

Into a world of darkness born

Thy folded hands beseeching light,

A temple-lamp of kingliness

Revealed in birth’s tremendous plight.

A symbol journey through a realm of tears,

The dark oppressive weight of life,

That greets the soul new-born in flesh,

While the dust of all infinity

Lies scattered on thy God-like feet;

Though speechless bringing forth the realms of sound,

And breathing gently in the sombre night,

One with the silent things of earth.

Night child, faint cries bespeak they presence,

While motionless in dreams thou liest

Still grasping memories of pregnant worlds

Seen now through lids that still to earth are closed --

Frail wanderings through timeless groves of sleep

To wake in matter’s stone-like trance,

To work, to mould the argent limbs divine

And clutch at stars that once were thine.

In stillness enter, to stillness return,

To cradle thought’s organic harmonies,

Plastic energies moulding godhead’s forms

In the dense and crowded jungle of our days.

Pale frame wherein Divinity rests,

Pale hands that hold the magic key of life

And eyes that through eternity have held

The radiance of the deathless spheres of God.

Arise, O Splendour, thrice-crowned Man, awake,

And dwell at the petals of Her Feet.

First published in Mother India – December 1970