Canto Two   The Kingdom of Subtle Matter   IN THE impalpable field of secret self, This little outer being's vast support Parted from vision by earth's solid fence, He came into a magic crystal air And found a life that lived not by the flesh, A light that made visible immaterial things. A fine degree in wonder's hierarchy, The kingdom of subtle Matter's faery craft Outlined against a sky of vivid hues, Leaping out of a splendour-trance and haze, The wizard revelation of its front. A world of lovelier forms lies near to ours, Where, undisguised by earth's deforming sight, All shapes are beautiful and all things true.

  Canto Three The House of the Spirit and the New Creation   A MIGHTIER task remained than all he had done. To That he turned from which all being comes, A sign attending from the Secrecy Which knows the Truth ungrasped behind our thoughts And guards the world with its all-seeing gaze. In the unapproachable stillness of his soul, Intense, one-pointed, monumental, lone, Patient he sat like an incarnate hope Motionless on a pedestal of prayer. A strength he sought that was not yet on earth, Help from a Power too great for mortal will, The light of a Truth now only seen afar, A sanction from his high omnipotent Source.

  Canto Four   The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real   THERE came a slope that slowly downward sank; It slipped towards a stumbling grey descent. The dim-heart marvel of the ideal was lost; Its crowding wonder of bright delicate dreams And vague half-limned sublimities she had left: Thought fell towards lower levels; hard and tense It passioned for some crude reality. The twilight floated still but changed its hues And heavily swathed a less delightful dream; It settled in tired masses on the air; Its symbol colours tuned with duller reds And almost seemed a lurid mist of day. A straining taut and dire besieged her heart; H

    BOOK ELEVEN   The Book of Everlasting Day   Canto One   The Eternal Day: The Soul's Choice and the Supreme Consummation   A MARVELLOUS sun looked down from ecstasy's skies On worlds of deathless bliss, perfection's home, Magical unfoldings of the Eternal's smile Capturing his secret heart-beats of delight. God's everlasting day surrounded her, Domains appeared of sempiternal light Invading all Nature with the Absolute's joy. Her body quivered with eternity's touch, Her soul stood close to the founts of the infinite. Infinity's finite fronts she lived in, n

  BOOK FIVE   The Book of Love   Canto One   The Destined Meeting-Place   BUT NOW the destined spot and hour were close; Unknowing she had neared her nameless goal. For though a dress of blind and devious chance Is laid upon the work of all-wise Fate, Our acts interpret an omniscient Force That dwells in the compelling stuff of things, And nothing happens in the cosmic play But at its time and in its foreseen place. To a space she came of soft and delicate air That seemed a sanctuary of youth and joy, A highland world of free and green delight Where spring and summer lay together and strove In indole

  Canto Fourteen   The World-Soul   A COVERT answer to his seeking came. In a far shimmering background of Mind-Space A glowing mouth was seen, a luminous shaft; A recluse gate it seemed, musing on joy, A veiled retreat and escape to mystery. Away from the unsatisfied surface world It fled into the bosom of the unknown, A well, a tunnel of the depths of God. It plunged as if a mystic groove of hope Through many layers of formless voiceless self To reach the last profound of the world's heart, And from that heart there surged a wordless call Pleading with some still impenetrable Mind, Voicin

  BOOK THREE   The Book of the Divine Mother   Canto One   The Pursuit of the Unknowable   ALL IS too little that the world can give: Its power and knowledge are the gifts of Time And cannot fill the spirit's sacred thirst. Although of One these forms of greatness are And by its breath of grace our lives abide, Although more near to us than nearness' self, It is some utter truth of what we are; Hidden by its own works, it seemed far-off, Impenetrable, occult, voiceless, obscure. The Presence was lost by which all things have charm, The Glory lacked of which they are dim signs. The world lived on made

  Canto Three   The Call to the Quest   A MORN that seemed a new creation's front, Bringing a greater sunlight, happier skies, Came burdened with a beauty moved and strange Out of the changeless origin of things. An ancient longing struck again new roots: The air drank deep of unfulfilled desire; The high trees trembled with a wandering wind Like souls that quiver at the approach of joy, And in a bosom of green secrecy For ever of its one love-note untired A lyric coil cried among the leaves. Away from the terrestrial murmur turned Where transient calls and answers mix their flood, King Aswapati listened through th

  Canto Two   The Growth of the Flame   A LAND of mountains and wide sun-beat plains And giant rivers pacing to vast seas, A field of creation and spiritual hush, Silence swallowing life's acts into the deeps, Of thought's transcendent climb and heavenward leap, A brooding world of reverie and trance, Filled with the mightiest works of God and man, Where Nature seemed a dream of the Divine And beauty and grace and grandeur had their home, Harboured the childhood of the incarnate Flame. Over her watched millennial influences And the deep godheads of a grandiose past Looked on her and saw the future's godheads come As

  Canto Three   Satyavan and Savitri   OUT OF the voiceless mystery of the past In a present ignorant of forgotten bonds These spirits met upon the roads of Time. Yet in the heart their secret conscious selves At once aware grew of each other warned By the first call of a delightful voice And a first vision of the destined face. As when being cries to being from its depths Behind the screen of the external sense And strives to find the heart-disclosing word, The passionate speech revealing the soul's need, But the mind's ignorance veils the inner sight, Only a little breaks through our earth-made bounds, So now they