Is it not time?   Is it not time? Insistent voices call. I cannot breathe. Open the sealed up gates. Oh, hasten now, the fainting spirit waits, Release it, Lord, before it swoon and fall. A lifetime spent in battering down the wall! Exhaustion, agony, the mind's debates, Or wild, unprofitable passion's spates, And wasted wrestling with black storm and squall.   I see, nothing I do can ever avail; This helplessness is all I offer You, This death, this anguish, this blank faceless face; If there's no key, then speak and blast the jail, Or melt the walls to fire, that passing through The heart be gathered to Your heart of Grac

Replies   Earth is full of replies; 0 yearning soul, to all your lonely whys An answer gleams against the heavens, afar, A star.   Because you have heard My pain within me like a wounded bird, I trace the rainbow in the skies again Through rain.   You have seen the plea  Stay waiting in a heart that's wild and free; But when it's dark, the bird must wish the sky Good-bye.   The great nights heal With sorrowed hush the breaking heart's appeal, For through much sacrifice it should have grown A stone.   We say we'll meet Because the ancient hum of hounding feet Still beats upon our lonesome tracks of dre

Presence   O beauteous singing Presence, Who were the heart of me, Why have You sunk in darkness Of the wild, weltering sea?   Churning the deeps of being, Your pillar of light churns hells; Black wave and poison foamings Engulf the stars and cells.   Blue-throated Love, O lift me From the blind night's abyss, Upon the spirit's forehead Plant your white nectared kiss;   And move upon the waters Calming each storm-tost wave, Call forth the moon-white Goddess From the hidden jewelled cave;   Once more unfold your beauty Upon the lotused sea, O golden shining Presence, Who are the heart of me.

Poets   Sometimes I think how strangely rhyme The oddest words with words sublime: Today he said, "X shows such malice..." Before me moved that shining Chalice Touched by those lips divine that spoke Of love. And as Y fumed there broke From his sore wound, "May every curse..." I heard it inly rhyme with "verse", Thought what my friends, the poets, would say: "Verse is a curse", they'd grant, "all day We have no quiet any more, But silly rhymes will pour and pour Into us, till mad with all that fizz We perpetrate stupidities Such as no prophet would prescribe... Should you want wisdom, shun our tribe."   — That is my friends',

Secret of the Night   I asked for darkness; thought me wise and strong, And fit in faith to meet its heaviness; It came, unstarred and mute, lest I transgress To love it only for its stars, its song; - So set me free of sin, inconscient wrong, To leave me in my lonely, pained distress; My crumbled impudence to break and bless, And distribute as bread to the world's throng:   And I, left limp, then saw it face to face, In silent purity against my wound With healing touch; and suddenly I knew The secret of the nights that pass unmooned, The winter-hunger, blindness, choked disgrace, Knew all my dark, my sorrow is but You.

Put off that Mask   Put off that mask of formal hue, And let your secret radiance shine, Unhood the divinity in you, The sweetness of the heart divine.   Why bury all that wealth of grace Beneath the veneer of a pose, Is not the face of love your face, Is not your truth a smiling rose?   That icy look, sharp lines show clear Unlovely feelings flowing unsmooth, Dark shadows which make you appear What you are not in your deep truth.   Ah! all the worlds would dance delight, Should your soul's hidden sun arise; The shades of pain would take their flight, And singing raptures throng the skies. Page-145

New Birth   Within the night of my earth-reverie, White flame-blades swiftly cut the veils of gloom, A soft cloud floats across the shining sea, And the blue light of your Presence fills the room...   The voice of Love's redemption comes to me, Bridging eternities of star-swept doom; The power of your white birth sets me free From vaulted rocks of death and Time's ghost tomb   Now only a fine blue tranquillity Enwraps the child-soul in your mystic womb—  Placenta of creation's memory, An arabesque from Joy's exquisite loom.   Page-2

The Moon   In the shining silence of the skies, The white moon stood tonight; And though I slept, bent over my eyes,  — Sweet sentinel of light.   And the darkness passed from me, I woke Within, — tranced by her spell, And saw, as each fine sleep-veil broke, The moon in the heart's deep well. Page-24

Kurukshetra   The Wheels turn ever faster Down the vast voids of night; Unknown, unseen, the Master Controls the cosmic fight:   Unmarked the Charioteer Drives through the desperate strife, Swiftly to kill, and clear The battlefields of life.   Across the path of vision The dragon passion's curled, The devils of derision, The witchcraft of the world.   Today there's blood and sorrow, Where dire powers embrace; But with the singing morrow Comes the beauty of His face. Page-86

So Far the Days   So far the days when you were among us here, And spoke and walked with us; such beauty filled Our lives, and every fibre of being thrilled Ecstatic at your touch, so warm, so near. How far those days; and since then, year on year Has passed, and all the outer sense is stilled, And every vanity and joy we willed Broken apart, and cracked its dry veneer. — Slowly you drove us inward, there to find Your love and Presence in the heart's abyss, Deep down within the wells of light and bliss, Where all is for ever true, for ever sure, Where neither Space nor passing Time can bind, And we are one with You for ever m