Be Mute...   Be mute, O heart, Till thick dark over the limbs and lips Seals the white skin impassioned whips have cut apart.   Before your word May meet the winds and waters, come To silent places where all dumb lone things are heard.   Let no tear flow: Why should you try so very hard To search and see if night is starred, or suffer so?   Lest you should tell Your pain in tears or vacant eyes, Take care, before the moon arise, to cloak them well.   If aught reveal In you the hatred and the sting, Go down the dark, discovering the pools which heal. Page-43

Light that Burns   What should we do with Heaven's light If it must wound us so? How sharp its rods and lashes smite, We'd rather hide below   The thick warm layers of our earth, Soft blanketed as once, And cradled darkly as at birth In swathes of ignorance.   And yet within us something cries For that white touch which burns, An anguish in our blackest lies To feel that Truth-fire yearns. Page-120

The Single Theme   My songs have but a single theme: Your love, Beloved, and your grace; The world is but a dream in dream, And Truth's the beauty of your face.   They say my themes are narrow, small, For they can hardly understand That You, O Love, are all in all, And all the worlds are in your hand;   That when I sing of You, I sing Of worlds beyond and worlds above, That even my poorest song can bring Eternal answers from your love. Page-74

-173_All's Well All's Well   There's but one deed to celebrate, The breaking of the Laws of Fate: Death burnt upon that wondrous pyre Built by Love's sacrificial fire.   There's but one image to enshrine, The beauty of that Love divine: The radiant gold within those eyes, From suns in far eternities.   And for the rest — there's naught to say. All's well, because She walked our way, And touched our dust: each thing's a flame, Each atom pulsates with Her Name. Page-175

Another Sacrifice   Pour the sun-world's brightest wine Into the deepest holes of night; Darkness drinks as Titans dine, With giant mouth and giant might.   The strongest liquors of the skies Will quench not those immense desires, Abysmal hungerings that rise From the primeval raging fires.   They ask another sacrifice: Not solar wine but blood's the fee; So Love Divine must pay the price In mortal body's agony. Page-169

Child of our Heart   Child of our heart, so beautiful, so bright, With angel radiances bedecked so fair, Flowers on your brow and stars within your hair, What do you do in these black streets of night? — These sunless cities reeking bale and blight, Where houses breathe a foul and fetid air, And bodies flaccid, cold, exhale despair, Fester with putrid thought and crooked spite.   O lovely child, most beautiful, you roam Joyous among these slums, these flabby hags, Untouched — pure sun-drop, snow-drop, honey-sweet; Nor fear, nor weep, though strayed so far from home, For you are Love, and in their midnight rags All

Dhruva   This is the star of Truth; the night Caves black and huge upon your soul; Steady your wild mind on the light That marks the splendour of the pole.   The moving stars that shape your track Among earth's whirling destinies, In endless cycles wheeling back, Retoss your soul upon Time's seas.   But this is fixed: the star that brings Wide peace and strength and sweet delight; — The centre of the starry rings, The one and only in your night. Page-23

Absence   The utmost sadness of the hours When You are gone from me; And when no more your Presence flowers Upon the mystic Tree.   Though winds pass by and golden rains, And birds and butterflies, Within the sapless roots and veins,  All sweetness, all life dies.   The worlds revolve in blank grey skies,  And sun-stars whirl away, And day and night the seed-heart cries Within its jail of clay.   O Love, your grace and beauty shower Upon the dark, dry Tree; Restore your Presence and your Power, Blossom once more in me. Page-6

Whom the Spirit Seeks   Myriads of worlds crash in our hearts each day, Yet in strange ocean-founts renewed they rise, Grow vast in understanding as the skies, Though hatreds rage and comrade-souls betray. And still through nights of peril and dismay, The dark suns' war, the cosmic agonies, To the clear heart's lone cry something replies, The voice of One who calls all hearts away...   One whom the spirit seeks through many births, Through storm-break, heart-break, howling winds of doom In forests passion-black, wastes of life's mire, Deserts and debris, ruins of ancient earths; — One who, unseen, leads her through

Reed of the Yamuna   Reed of the Yamuna, The flute-boy is come,  But ere through your body The mad rhythms hum,   O reed of the river, Much sorrow and strain  Will be yours — the cleansing, The shaping, notched pain.   From touch of sweet waters And cool fragrant sand,  The strong hand shall wrench you, The passionate hand.   But when it puts through you, With swiftness and poise, The small knife of silver, Be glad and rejoice.   Reed of the Yamuna, The mute agony Will pass through your being And set your soul free;   Will pass like a dark spell,  And you who endured, Find