Mother Mahakali

A limpid lightning-flame in tempest-dance

On the breast of Time prostrate and motionless,

Star-sparks through space fly forth from Her fire intense

And the stress of Her steps whose speed no light can trace.

She leaps to break the pride of Titan might

And win for God His Kingdoms lost to Death;

Her glowing glance drives through the core of Night;

None can withstand Her crimson flash of wrath.

A moment of Her pressing white heat scores

Achievements great where failed a sluggish age;

For Fate in awe Her conquering flame adores

That packs with glories won heaven's record page.

Tender Her love, Her blessings burn like fire,

Wild is Her joy and felt like a thunder-blow,

Heroic souls to Her blazing grace aspire,

Who crowns them with Her gold-orbed suns aglow.

18-11-1933

The Mother in Trance

Far more mysterious

Than the star eyed silent bewildering Night

Are Her sky-scanning eyes divinely serious;

For on them is the captured Infinite

And from there wide heavens brimming with bounty and grace

Deluge the Earth

That raises to Her in prayer its sorrowful face,

Withered and sad with the spirit's dearth.

The Mother in trance

Dives deep in the Supreme's ocean-heart of delight

And from the eternal runic dance

Brings out for the worlds His hidden secrets of light,

And gathers from His consciousness

Truth Omnipotent victor against the world's odds;

Her will benign and passionless

Shall give birth from this clay to a perfect world of gods.

19-11-1933

The Eternal Smile

To cleave Night's gloom the Eternal's smile has come

And made the Mother's halo-moon its home;

Thence it pours forth its mystic ray of delight,

Its peace, its healing balm for the wounds of Night,

Dark-clotted, stabbed by Time and in agony dumb.

Her nectar-spray was once, but tranquil peace

Has healed those weeping wounds; now a sweet hum

Of her soul's joy breathes down the heavenly breeze.

Her spirit buoyed up milky white and pure

Feels the magic pull of the Mother's thrilling lure.

Lost in the sweetness and the smiling gleam

She is carried apace on the moon-sea of her dream.

20-11-1933

The Path of God

The path of God is for heroic souls

Who leap to glory or can welcome death;

Adventure, hazard is their very breath,

They revel most where battle-thunder rolls.

 

But timid, trembling meagre-hearted men

Should utter not in vain the holy Name;

Let them rest safe within their narrow pen,

Nor think of touching the celestial flame.

 

The love of God is like a hungry fire

Consuming all it reaches with its breath;

Only who consecrate a life entire

Rise to that altar out of night and death.

 

God-ocean, with the pearls of pure delight

That lie in heaps below Thy flaming waves,

The divers of the deep who know not fright

Dare thee and win the treasure of thy caves.

 

21-11-1933

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

A soul of faith, the innocence of a child

Which knows yet knows not how and sees though blind,

A puzzle to this age by doubt defiled

And its pride in the half-lit groping surface-mind.

In him was housed a quenchless nameless fire

Whose eager leaping tongues dazed heaven's eyes

And formed a naming stair for the spirit from mire

To climb to heights that reach beyond the skies.

His was a diamond-nature rare to find;

Its every side revealed a Face of love;

Grace was enshrined within; spell-bound his mind

Danced to Her rhythm in her rubied cove.

Unversed in worldly wisdom, yet a light

Glowed in his eyes, a source of that wisdom true

That gave to blinded man its flawless sight

And strength to start his God ward march anew.

Experience concrete and no mist-surmise

Could satisfy his searching grasp at Truth;

A master of the thousand alchemies

Transmuted Time's decay to spirit's youth.

23-11-1933

After Storm

Dispersed are the darkened clouds that densely hid

Serene, profound and calm the Heaven's face;

Completely torn and cast away the lid

Of heavy joyless gloom has left no trace.

The giant thunder's proudly rolling threat,

The blinding sparks from angered unseen eyes,

The fierce-winged, mountain-shaking storm retreat

Replaced by these victorious starry skies.

The gracious Lover's, soul-inviting smile

Meets me reflected from a spotless moon;

Delight is now where joylessness a while

Before was rank, and silence brings its boon.

Now eyes reply to stars, and the heart's afloat

On a heaven-bathing sea of moon-delight;

My soul is seated in a silver-boat

And drifting through expanses infinite.

29-11-1933

I Love and Worship

I love and worship those two liquid eyes

That hold within their deathless spark

The azure, infinite, unconquered skies,

Unstained by Night's usurping dark.

That face serene and cast in love's pure mould

Upon which smiles eternal day,

To joy of light arouses me, a cold

And lifeless mass of sunken clay.

Before Her presence sweet, sublime, benign,

My sorrows change into delight,

Her silence-music's melody divine

Drowns in pure sweetness life's upright.

The boundless Grace of the Gracious One in form

For human sense to touch and feel,

The Mother is beyond all earthly norm;

She bears the Eternal's sacred seal.

6-12-1933

Kumud, the Night Lotus

The clamorous jarring day, the fevered rush

Of clashing greed, the stress of un poised life

I shun; refuge I seek in the balm-hush

Of Night's profound, with starry silence rife.

Then in peace-dew beneath Heaven's quiet face,

And mid sweet hummings of a rippling breeze

My heart becomes unbarred to the Moon's embrace

My snow-white petals spread their smiling ease.

Pure starry pearls my soul's blossoms adorn;

My fragrant breathings like an incense rise

To One above whose silence now is born

And drips from Night's mysterious myriad eyes.

On waters calm swinging abloom and pure

In moon-delight; absorbed in reverie-rest

Of Him who wears the veil of Night obscure

In silence I receive my unseen Guest.

7-12-1933

Here is the Mother

Here is the Mother of the universe,

The purest love is here enshrined in clay,

Transmuted to a moon-orbed smile, the nurse

Of a new-born Truth-creation's dawning day.

She stands amidst us, yet the shadow cast

By human grossness hides Her from the eye

Night-lidded, blind to vision of the Vast

And un conversant with the earth-born sky.

But through this veil, the eye of faith aglow

Is blessed with Her vision and the heart afire

Feels with a new soul-sense Her presence, slow

Emerging from the smoke mist of desire.

And at the mystic touch of Her moon-ray

The blossomed being breathes out God-perfume

And round the Mother's feet entranced in play

Revolves in a joy that Time can not consume.

10-12-1933

The Mother before Us

From the unknown Beyond to mortal birth,

From Her eternal Home of Bliss un sensed,

Lo, She has deigned to come on sorrowful Earth,

The Glory unborn in human form condensed.

And now She stands before us in this Night

That gathers to it all Space in Time extended;

Sipped are its shadows grey into the bright

Halo of Her smile with Her moon-beauty blended.

The touch of Her feet makes Earth a Paradise,

Her love protects from harm each offered being,

Compassion flows unceasing from Her eyes,

Her presence is an urge to God ward freeing.

Her mind goes ranging on transcendent heights,

But her heart clasps creation and its woe,

She brings to Earth from Her supernal nights

A boon of deathless life in clay to grow.

Her contemplations the wide worlds inform,

Her mood imprints itself on every soul

That slips into Her love's ocean great and warm

Whose rapture-rhythms Death and Life control.

12-12-1933

In the Unknown

I am adrift upon an unknown sea.

That seems to have no bottom and no shore,

With unaccustomed eyes I cannot see

What sapphire-Iustred waters evermore

Bear me along untrodden pearl-strewn ways

And strange-souled creatures gaze at me in wonder

With eyes that emanate some star's new rays

And penetrate and tear thick veils asunder.

At times I hear its rolling rhythms' roar

And set my cells vibrating in their swoon;

At times its silence glides into my core

And lulls me to a sleep that floats like the Moon.

Around me everywhere these waters speak

Of something dear and with my fibres wound;

Its sense I vaguely catch and dive to seek

Its fullest meaning in my thoughts profound.

I am adrift, I know not where it will

Bear me away and land me in what clime:

Across my being runs a wonder-thrill

And revelations leap in starts of Time.

12-12-1933

An Invocation

Embedded deep in death, thou slumbering spark,

O gift of deathless and primeval Fire,

Awake and set ablaze the abysmal Dark

And with thy roar of flames burn out the mire

Of Time's decay, its ashes scattered wide

By thy impetuous breath; gigantic rise

Above these steeps of space whose shadows hide

From yearning eyes star-tryst in Paradise.

Rise up, O flame, and never rest nor linger,

Let tempest play upon thy naming lyre,

And Heaven's blue be pierced with thy keen finger,

Display thy flag on the spirit's un reached spire.

13-12-1933

Life Universal

A boundless life is everywhere athrob;

It fills to overflowing all wide Space;

Its mystery no mortal mind can probe,

It slips through the science' clutch and thought's curled maze.

There's somewhere far beyond the reach of sense,

The hidden source of all that comes to birth,

A timeless breath of a Being, One, immense,

That wings with light the Sun, the stars, the Earth.

A sea of life it is unfathomed, vast

Upon whose waves the universe is tots

Towards a harbour to be reached at last,

The ancient home to the exiled spirit lost.

All ships have spread their sails upon the sea,

The tempest and the hurricane that rage

But help their passage forward ceaselessly,

While guides their course the hoary Captain, sage.

21-12-1923

Thy Presence

Thy presence is to us one mighty urge

Towards the heights that stand inviting nigh.

My spirit rises in a tireless surge

To clasp with foam-white arms the peaks on high.

Our human weakness in Thy presence dies

A master-strength fills up the failing heart.

In terror the dark host to all regions flies,

Dispersed by Thy Victorious shining dart.

Where once was dense besieging gloomy night,

There reigns a quickened life of golden morn.

Death with its train succumbs before Thy might

For thou art here and Earth no more forlorn.

9-9-1934

I am Haunted

I am haunted by Thy presence every-where,

Awake asleep or in my errant dreams.

Thou art round me like the all-pervading air;

Thy presence breaks into my secret schemes.

My thoughts are chased by Thy quick silent feet,

Thy sweetness takes my heart by swift surprise,

In their wild wandering my desires meet

Thy taming voice — a voice of silent skies.

The breath I take in boars Thy runic name

Like a gold illumined boat sent out by Him

For whom my soul impatient and aflame

Has cried through ages of illusion dim.

10-9-1934

If I could only Love the Mother

If I could only love the Mother

As my very life and soul,

I do not care to soar to other

Worlds beyond the earthly pole.

 

The heavens they talk of rich with wealth

And happiness that long endures,

And breathings of immortal health

And all the joys their ease ensures,

 

Are foreign to my soul's desire,

However they alluring be

With their beauty of strange hues of fire

And their still stranger harmony.

 

I prize far more the dust of Earth

Than all those rubied unseen lands;

For Love divine has taken birth,

And in the Mother's form it stands.

 

Of what avail are the riches rare

That those ethereal worlds possess;

Unless there shine divinely fair,

The Mother's face our life to bless?

 

The touch of Mother's feet can change

The dust of earth to star-worth treasure.

Her grace can carry us to strange

Spiritual spaces without measure.

 

I only ask to have my seat

Upon the dust of Earth, my nurse:

Laying my all before the feet

Of the Mother of the universe.

 

11- 9-1934

To Serve Thee

Each move of my arms for Thy work

Is a wave of Thy joy within,

That comes drowning the armies of murk

Shadowy and unclean.

 

Each step that I take at Thy bidding

Is a step on the ladder of light;

Each obstacle my pathway impeding

Is blown on the winds like a mite.

 

The sweet warmth that I feel in my duty

Nowhere can I find upon Earth;

It melts me and moulds to the beauty

Of a love divines in birth.

 

To serve Thee is the source of all good,

It starts a new rhythm of breath.

It shall be my drink and my food

And a power to conquer Death.

 

11-9-I934

Thou wast beside me

Thou wast beside me all the while

Though I was not with Thee,

And Thy unfailing gracious smile

Had no reply from me.

 

I turned my back upon Thy love,

The source of all delight,

So gloom on gloom possessed me and drove,

And wrenched was my plight.

 

I glided down a gradient straight

Into a pit of woes;

My sorrow crushed me with its weight,

All round me were my foes'

 

Grim faces fierce, hands ever ready

To strike me unawares,

My steps uneasy and unsteady

Caught in their cunning snares.

 

I knew that Thou wast never far,

And could have called Thee nigh,

But foolish pride became a bar

And stopped my rising cry.

 

Thus in my agony I lay

And found no ray of hope,

I left my soul to drift away

Along destruction's slope.

 

But soon Thy tender mother heart,

With pity thrilled for me,

Thy succour brought like a speedy dart

Unseen, unerringly.

Then were the enemies dispersed,

Thy crimson fire burned

And darkness changed to light, reversed;

The rose of morn returned.

 

My sorrow-spot became a moon,

My pain was turned to rapture,

Hope living rose from its deep swoon

The love-light to recapture.

 

I found myself uplifted high

Placed upon mountains white

Where never came a staining sigh,

But only joy and Light.

 

All-kindness, All-humility,

Forgiveness unsurpassed,

I found The Mother greeting me

Despite my heavy past.

 

27-10-1937

On Thy Path

Each time I take Thy name I do advance

A step on the steep mountain path that rises

To Thy sublimest height, held in a trance

Of white eternity beyond surmises;

And many steps adown Thy infinite

Compassion comes to meet my climbing soul,

To comfort and to lead through all defeat

Its faithful aspiration to its goal.

Each time I think of Thee, O Glorious One!

My thought becomes a channel swift to bring

To me the burning sweetness of the sun,

Thy smile, life's lotus-joy's awakening.

Whenever an emotion turns to Thee,

My heart becomes, as if by some magic rare,

A bud of rubied flame that steadily

Mounts up to kiss Thy love and open there.

And whatsoever work my body does,

In service to Thy will becomes a song

Of worship bringing thrills miraculous

To all my members grown immune from wrong.

To Thee alone and to none else, sweet Mother!

My being is for ever consecrated:

The sacrificial fire, no smoke can smother,

Shall speed to Thy embrace my soul belated.

16-1-1943

To Love Thee

To love Thee is the sweetest thing yet known,

O Sweetest of the sweet,

Divinity we meet,

Mother of dream, Delight, close, human-grown.

To love Thee is the highest yet attained

Fulfilment of the heart,

A novice in the art

Of rising into raptures never stained.

To love Thee is to change mortality

Into a rhythmic motion

Of life's up surging ocean,

Adoring Thy moon-faced eternity.

To love Thee is to be a smile supernal,

A pure and fadeless rose,

Such as in Thy garden grows,

Blessed by Thy warmth, the source of glory vernal.

To love Thee is to live and move in light

Beyond the Dark's domain,

And more and more regain

Our lost affinity to Thy heavens bright.

To love Thee is to be all that Thou art

And own with Thee Thy all:

Ay! for this rings Thy call

Mother! I will love Thee with all my heart.

I will love Thee, my Mother! evermore,

Till all my burning clay

Becomes love's limpid play

Around Thy gracious feet that grace this shore.

21-1-1943