TO THE FOUR NAMES OF THE MOTHER DIVINE Maheshwari NOR mote nor world may swerve beyond Thy law, O Veiled One : but starry incense bore Rumour of Thee from midnight's ancient hill— " Tranquil insistence with compassionate will." Mahasaraswati Far-avenued between the day and night Thy lotus breathes perfection from its heart, Crowning our shadow-dream with crystal light, Moulding Time's clay to ever-living Art. Mahakali Men of the noon-tide, careless of earthly norm, Shall trace Thy fire-dance down the ways of storm, Mocking the ramparts of the world's deceit, Casting their death beneath Thy

AT THE CLOSE OF NIGHT WHITE with starry shine The air beneath the. sky, Windless and still,. Awaits what summoning voice From caves of earth, From furthest verges of the sea Where the silken hangings of dawn Cover the mystic gate through which the Sun shall pass ? The gazelles of darkness run swift towards the West; Their shadowy feet flicker over ground bright with dew ; And a little wind of the morning lifts the leaves and fronds of the forest. November 8, 1936. Page-232

DERIVATION GOOD-BYE to the beechen girdles, Then slantwise up the-hill— And a shimmering silence curdles To notes that spill Out from a feathered mote Or a spark Of the unseen joy, from the throat Of light-enfettered lark. Leaving the past to kindle Springlight, Persephone Ended winter's dwindle In Sicily ; And out of Pluto's tomb Engendered For deathless Love a bloom —Love stays, though flowers are rendered. How should one flowing stream-head Reck neither joy nor pain Unless heaven's gift were dream-led To light again ? High on the hillside welling From sad earth, —Pure mirror, sk

FRAIL SKY THAT YEARNS FOR BLISS STARS are fading one by one, yet within there is a first dim twilight from a spirit-sun. In that pearl-grey gloaming stern shadows disappear ; still-half-whispered light is doming graith and gear. Cover me with silence, frail sky that yearns for bliss, send seeing born of hunger for the silver kiss from the lotus dawning of yet-to-be sunrise and for the amber lightening as day-truth fills the eyes. October 25, 1938. Page-329

THE RHYTHM OF SILENCE THE moon that metes the dark time With hush full hours And drowns in a tide of shimmering peace The tallest to wars, Sweeps with swift surge of loveliness Far other lands ; And no feet heavy with sorrow press Those dread less sands. Sentinel trees are fringing A far-off shore— O stillness of the boughs that trace On a mossy floor An ageless pattern of white moon-rays That shift and cross, A glyph of beauty and of love-filled days Taintless, with no dross. April 17, 1935. Page-118

BEAUTY OUT of the opening blossom Spirit flame Brandish thy fiery arrow, Innerly aim. Bent be the bow with thy straining Taut the string : Heartward the arrowy speedings Blithely sing. Enter the innermost chamber, O fire born dart, Till thy rhythming love and thy beauty Thrill through the heart. April 16, 1936. Page-184

THE RIM OF THE FOUNTAIN OF TIME WHITE as the foam of the fountain The bowl of milk-white jade Circled the plashing water That had fled from haunts of shade. Winter lies deep in the earth-womb, Spring is the leaping up, High is the summery plume-sway : Bideth the dregs of the cup. Night had the shadowy cavern, Dawn knew the joy of the spray, Noon sate on summits of grandeur : What of the ending of day ? Ever White Silence runneth, Circling our flicker of speech ; Not there can come hues of waning, Nor any birth-cry reach.

THE GREY NESS AND THE QUIET A GREEN-GRAY twilit hush in the ageless forest, After the immense canopy of boughs Has strained all glare and vivid colours from the sunlight. Plinths of tree and stems of giant creeper rise up from the floor of dimness. To the full height of these grey spaces In a cathedral calm. A plashy thud of some hard-rinded fruit Ripples momently the tapestries of hush. The grey ness and the quiet are over all, a many- fathomed covering of ocean mystery. That turbulence of harsh atomic being, Those hard and garish colours of the upper day Are no more ; An

MOUSIKE (On hearing Mrs. Fullop Miller.) THE air grows one with a voice; Some magical sway , Has utterly changed the paltry hour To a strangeness which is yet our one true home. The calyx of the song no longer laps The slowly opening silence that is Light. Now the silence is a calm blue sky : The song has become three dazzling doves Of whiteness, and they wing with a lovely motion Of a rapture unmingled and unmarred. O harmony of incorruptible form Stay further— in the hourglass every sand-grain Is of gold—Time's metronome Is changed to the subtlest weaving Of the Life Dance and the Hymn of L

JE TE DONNE CES VERS (From Baudelaire) I GIVE to thee these lines that if my name's prow hail After auspicious voyage the shores of future clime And blend with men's thoughts at eve a shadowy dream-chime, A galliot speeding down the course of a veer less gale, Thy memory, like the unfixed legends of old time, May as a dulcimer the listening ears assail And weary them, and a mystic fellowship prevail And link to it everlastingly my haughty rhyme, Being whom all revile, to whom from the chasmed black To the zenith of light none, save I, throws answer back ! —O thou who, like a shadow which leaves no dint or sig