The Soul that Bears

These sudden moods that on the spirit steal

Are islands in a sea of turbulence,

But lacking calm, bereft of unity

We fall or fail as one whose innocence

Was lost upon the waves of his desire.

Caught in a limbo from which we cannot move,

The mind a spinning-wheel of random thoughts,

Remembering the briefness of a love

That open up a passage in the heart

Where lay the sleeping soul whose song once still

Arose like morning ragas the faithful chant

In foreign lands to wake the inner will

That labours to attain and shall endure

To understand the meaning of this birth

And life's travail beneath the silent stars,

The consciousness and destiny of earth.

We must await the pure enlightening ray.

All we once were and in this house of breath

Shall yet become is written and decreed,

There is no end, no terminus of death,

The soul that bears shall know one day the light,

Free from the servile bondage of the night.