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

Thou and All   Sweet Love, now all is over with me; The myriad worlds within my heart Are dead in thy infinity, And now, Thou only art.   The souls of things, untrammelled, free, Break through earth's dam, the body's wall, Mingle and merge within thy sea, And Thou, O Love, art all.   But through thy silence and thy peace, Descends a voice from planes above, Vibrates and runs upon the seas, And all is Thou, O Love. Page-38

Awaiting Orders   Lord, don't you see this state of mind, The chaos dancing in the brain? Mete out your sunshine to the blind, From freeing floods of light, refrain.   How shall this being hold the flow, The throng of words and melodies That pour and pour non-stop and grow A whirlpool in the inner seas?   The body's breathless with the power, Life shaken longs to sit apart; But there's betrayal in this hour, A black-out in the offered heart.   ... I do not know, Lord, your Will stands. Order the work that's to be done; For all the world is in your hands, Both chaos and the dancing sun. Page-166

-101_The Spirit's Claim The Spirit's Claim   ...Where the pathways meet, we are one, And where the pathways are different. I hold the paradox to my heart and wait.   Let the strangeness grow within me to silence and reconciliation. Let me accept this fulfilment that has come.   Upon the lonely roads, where separation made me sing, a new young loneliness grows to silence, to the prelude of this fulfilment...   Your limbs and life are everywhere, O Beautiful: All things are words, words grown suddenly rich in meaning — puns and quibbles and symbols, — the rose, the thorns, the tree and hill and sky... Lo! how the spirit dances upon sense

Assurance   When all your life has gone to pieces, Smashed on the stillness of your soul, I'll shine within the interstices And come and make you new and whole.   Be brave, fling all your being's treasure Within the fires I have lit;  My Love has neither stop nor measure, So prove your love too infinite. Page-17