Sandhya Part 5

Pale this twilight-face, Shade-ridden the horizon-light; The forest, a green-gold vision of grace In its frame of lavender mist.

No rose-leaf washed in moonlight; No vine on vermilion walls; Pale sunlight fading into night, Dark tunes, the music of the hour.

No death, nor life is ours, here; But the vast vague sea of black Sounded by star-mariners Seeking the Infinite's track.

33

DEAD LOVE

Pour no blood on ashes, brother, That is not the way; Better say nothing, Blood is no life-giver; It makes death look so gay.

Dead life, or dead love Need no blood at all.

No trumpet's call can Bring back what you lived, and strove: The ashes know no thrall!

Why cry for a colored gla.s.s That for jewel you took; The magic--the dream-- All returning to dust and gra.s.s, Not a day love your soul forsook.

At last, you have known it, That is more than they do.

Be not afraid, O friend, Alone, alas, alone! you have loved and lived it, Pour no blood on the ashes, for blood can not turn into dew.

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It is the same twilight, dear, The hour of love and tear When in raiments of shadows Fancies, fears, hopes, and sorrows Tread the path of sunset, While like barks of jet Float the clouds from east to west.

I think of thee, my darling, As in my heart strange chords ring Out melodies of many memories, And half-forgotten reveries Telling of this or that scene, That is and has been Trod by thee, Queen of queens.

My dreams of thee are ceaseless, As my love of thee is endless; Whether it be sunset or sunrise, Hour of star-song, or bird-cries It is of thee that I dream, In the heart of my soul's stream That flows to thy feet, my darling.

Dark grows both east and west; Flower-heads droop into rest, As I seek to lay my heart and loving On thy star-white breast, my darling, And sink into that pool of sleep That rises from thy singing's deep, While all are silent, as my desires near thee, my Queen.

What peace thy presence breathes!

What serenity weaves its wreathes!

What myriad wonders touch hands Across many seas, from many lands, When a thought of thee Heralds thy coming to me Between palpitating desires, and fragrant dreams.

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WEARINESS

Weariness the tune of this evening melody, Pain the lute to which I sing; Ah! G.o.ddess, why this gray measure In thy starry harmony?

The white conch[4] of the half-moon Silent as though all worship's ceased, No incense-perfume from the forest censer The breeze brings; all still, like torrid noon.

I row in a black bark on a copper-colored sea, The sun fades like a golden bubble in its deep; Weariness the chart that I hold in my hand, Weariness the tune of this evening melody.

[Footnote 4: In a Hindu temple conch sh.e.l.ls are blown during or at the close of a worship.]

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A call, not a song; A command, not a prayer; No mellowing moonlight, but dawn, Frail, fanciful, and fair In the east of my dream and desire.

At the portal of unending desire, Draped in diaphanous dreams, With a whispered word of fire That quivers and gleams Through the clouds of my longing.

Longings poignant with pains and tears Enfold, and fill my soul That aches with hopes and fears As thy chariot wheels' roll Sets fire with torches of gold To my words, my silences, my singing, And to this black pyre of my life To take my being on the wings of thy embracing To sail away, far away from man's hate and strife Where only love reigns on its throne of unending light.

37

REMORSE

Gently descending dark-- Curtain of silence From heaven to earth;

The drama of day over, Empty the seats of life, Dead the twilight fire.

Curtains of black Woven from threads of purple By the hands of a star,

That lone soul weeping Over the dead hours Laid by mute time in the eternal's grave.

In the night of my soul Not even a ray, Nor a mourner present;

But a deep dark hollow Where no fate weeps Even fear is afraid to tread:

Fear-forsaken, hollow within hollow, Even silence flees from me-- O, the pity of it!

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POET