The Choral Odes of AUM

This is the glory of the waking Spring

When from a seeming death that is but sleep

The year returns in fruitful blossoming

With beauty that makes the envious Heaven's weep.

Flowers burst through the still half-frozen crust

With a force beyond proportion to their size

In an exuberant and joyous thrust

To see yet one more burning dawn arise.

But now comes winter and the frost appears

In sparkling fairy landscapes edged with rime,

The rose whose petals droop with dewy tears

In a deathless moment of eternal time.

My labour done, the garden surely blessed

All struggles and successes memories

Recurring in my dreams while earth at rest

Prepares the sap to flow in leafless trees.

I leave this place of beauty quietly

Returning to my soul's ancestral home

In India whose refuge by the sea

Awaits me with the choral odes of AUM.

Will I again awake and draw new breath,

Sign my name in the scripture-book of love

And leave behind the bitterness of death,

My worthiness of all Their blessings prove.