Forgive Me Rose Forgive me rose, I love the peony And iris held in my beloved's hands And I have other paramours as well, Not kin to thee but of the heat-filled lands. Excuse me rose, I seem impertinent To dare comparison with your perfume But in my heart I hold the jasmine fair And breathed the scented lily in full bloom. But you are perfect rose, divine in hues Whose royal fragrances with gods can vie, I cannot pass without due compliment And hold you now, queen of earth and sky.

Music of the Soul^s Desire.htm Music of the Soul's Desire A higher music waits upon the air, Soars among the stars and weaves its song, Descending it can call the heaven's here, It answers to the prayerful and the strong. In all aspiring hearts it shall descend To make of earth a garden spot for God Where flowers chant and sorrow finds its end In Joy's embrace, the gates of love unbarred. Symphonic, world on world shall then rejoice As barriers fall and melodies inspire Angels and men to join in one great voice To sing the music of the soul's desire.

The Visage of Our Queen Longing for Her feet to come Her face beloved once seen, A voice from our ancestral home, The visage of our queen. We call in silence and we wait Counting not the years Nor mark the sudden turns of fate That fuel our human tears. The world assails us with its woes And nothing is what it seems, Still in us the Presence grows In Her earth's future dreams. We shall be one with Her again, Our souls of this aware When ego in its den is slain, Desire turned to prayer That being pure we may arise To kneel before Her feet And gaze untroubled in Her eyes And know ourselves complete.

In the Sanctum Sanctorum If in the past I have honoured thee Too seldom when the hurrying feet of life And the relentless pace of restless will Have overwhelmed my soul or inner strife Darkened the luminous glass in which to see The image of the one who is my guide, If the sense of separate self has blinded me And to desire's cravings I complied, Thou who are forgiveness and all love Patient as the charioteer of earth Who sanctifies with blazing hues of day, Know my failings and account my worth And in the sanctum sanctorum sit and wait Unseen but felt as with the inward turn All becomes a sacrificial rite Where day a

Haiku on the Moon in the Service Tree The moon appears Through darkened leaves Silvering the 'Service' tree.

Three Haiku for Mary Helen In The Ashram I saw you there, A vision in blue Passing before Her lotus feet. By the Lake Light on water Sparkles and moves And with it flows my silent soul. Autumn So many leaves These coloured days, Thoughts of death and peace and Spring!

I Will Remember You At night I will remember you When calm descends in solitude Or the wakeful eye of new morn burns And life from dreamlike sleep returns. When winter lays his icy hands Upon the drowsy breast of earth And silence nears and all is still In moonlight or in sudden chill. When Spring apparelled in leafy dress, No more the bareness of branch and twig, Colours with his wand the world And bulbs in glory burst unfurled, When joy returns with songbird call And melting rivulets like tears This new-born world invigorate Again on you I'll meditate. For have we not through these brief years The bliss of

Prayer and Consecration I pray the Presence to pierce this obdurate mind And in the well of the grief-torn heart instil The cleansing Force,, centre of peace and calm, Pure and strong inviolable Will To suffer change unmoved, unscathed by fire That burns away the remnants of the past, Whose heat is not impossible to bear, And I in total offering a last Irrevocable holocaust of self, A consecration of all I represent Unknown to me within this outer shell, A vessel cleansed, made ready for God's descent.

Poverty of Soul Elusive sleep why come you not tonight When all the dark enfolds me as I wait? A thousand thoughts within my brain alight, Unwelcome visitors who agitate And press for recognition as I lie Confounded by the world that men have wrought, Their hatreds cowled in religious piety The endless wars summing up to nought. A poverty of soul defines mankind, His power lust, desires uncontrolled, For few escape the prison of the mind Or ideologies grown quickly old. In truth there is no death the sages write Why then this vain attraction for the night?

Transformed by Beauty As we draw nearer the sustaining light And feel Her arms around us gently close Enveloping our souls with tender love, Of all resistant strains She will dispose. Have we not dreamed asleep amongst the stars Of joy's return to earth when we would wake And thrilled by the song of a flute-like voice Once more the Spirit's journey undertake. Are we not bound to Her with golden chains Willing servitors upon Her will, Obedient to Her call to serve again This destined world we must with beauty fill And truth the soaring eagle of our days, Vanquishing the battlements of night, In oneness at their feet o