Above beginning and beyond continuance
The worshipper of Hari rises free,
Within, without, for him Hari alone exists.
Why, then, should he now seek the holy shrines?
The invocation of the all-powerful Name
Contains the virtue of all sacred texts.
By this name dull-witted man is freed.
Through it the stones themselves float on the sea.
Mukta by Hari's name is freed for aye;
Neither rebirth nor death remains for us.

Sleep, dear Sleep, sweet harlot of the senses
Delilah of the spirit, you unnerve
The strong man's knees, depose his laughing brain,
And make him a mere mass of steady breathing,
A bag of sluggish automatic tubes

No better than a dog beside a fire,
Soft enemy of will and pure ambition,
Vampire of poets and all who aspire,
You blur and fog the mind with luxury:
I fight against you, grudge you every hour;
If I must yield, I yield unreconciled
And even then my thought shall flutter free
In the creative brightness of a dream.

Rude architect, rich instinct's natural taste
Is thine by heritage. Thy little mounds,
Bedecking furze-clad heath and rushy waste
Betraced with sheep-tracks, shine like pleasure grounds.
No rude inelegance thy work confounds,
But scenes of picturesque and beautiful
Lie mid thy little hills of cushioned thyme,
On which the cow-boy, when his hands are full
Of wild flowers, leans upon his arm at rest,
As though his seat were feathers. When I climb
Thy little fragrant mounds, I feel thy guest,
And hail neglect thy patron, who contrives

Your mind was wrought in cosmic solitude,
Through which careered an undulous pageantry
Of fiends and suns, darkness and boiling sea,
All held in ordered sway by beauty's mood.

Guest-champion lent by God, in might you stood
Before the throngs of men; you helped to free
Their souls; below, you played in heavenly key
Your heart's concerto—throbbing interlude.

But your suave Egoist, for selfish fame,
Hurled to the bogs of Hell the Rebel Will
And boxed him dark in freedom's smudgy hearse;
He paid blood-price for thought; his noble shame

No one ever comes here—
Not since last April when the gamekeeper
Choked with lopt boughs this coppice-track
Scarcely distinguished from the black
Tangle of thorn, these autumn gusts
Are stripping cinder-bare,
For only here and there
A last leaf rusts.

So all along this track
Whose length I wander aimlessly and back
With leaf-clogged footsteps that fall dumb
The burdock-leaves hang in foul scum;
But oh those gummy burs are sly,
For brushing by a stem
My coat is thick with them
Withered and dry.

But glad am I to think

By a dim road, o'ergrown with dry thin grass,
—A little straggling, wild, wind-beaten tree
Stood, like a sentry, where no feet might pass,
—And storm-swept by the sea.

What was the secret of that lonely place?
—Had some accursèd thing gone by this way,
Leaving the horror of his evil face
—On leaf and bough and spray?

I know not. But the very sunbeams took
—The darkness of the gnarled and twisted stem;
The summer air those wrinkled leaves forsook
—Nor ever played in them.

A few days more, and then
There'll be no secret glen,
Or hollow, deep and dim,
To hide or shelter him.

And on the prairie far,
Beneath the beacon star
On evening's dark'ning shore,
I'll hear him nevermore.

For where the tepee smoke
Curled up of yore, the stroke
Of hammers rings all day,
And grim Doom shouts, “Make way!”

The immemorial hush
Is broken by the rush
Of armed enemies
Unto the utmost seas.
A few days more, and then
There'll be no secret glen,
Or hollow, deep and dim,
To hide or shelter him.

In the wet dusk silver sweet,
Down the violet scented ways,
As I moved with quiet feet
I was met by mighty days.

On the hedge the hanging dew
Glassed the eve and stars and skies;
While I gazed a madness grew
Into thundered battle cries.

Where the hawthorn glimmered white,
Flashed the spear and fell the stroke—
Ah, what faces pale and bright
Where the dazzling battle broke!

There a hero-hearted queen
With young beauty lit the van:
Gone! the darkness flowed between
All the ancient wars of man.

While I paced the valley's gloom

See the stars, love,
In the water much clearer and brighter
Than those above us, and whiter,
Like nenuphars!

Star-shadows shine, love:
How many stars in your bowl?
How many shadows in your soul?
Only mine, love, mine?

When I move the oars, see
How the stars are tossed,
Distorted, even lost!
Even yours, do you see?

The poor waters spill
The stars, waters troubled, forsaken!—
The heavens are not shaken you say, love;
Its stars stand still.

There! did you see
That spark fly up at us? even
Stars are not safe in heaven!

Wild sounds of battle and fierce cries of pain,
Vague murmurs of dim hopes and dreams most rare,
A glitter of bright swords in sunlit air,
And desolate cities, ghastly with their slain;
In cloister cell, a vexed, imperious brain—
In hamlet rude, a face deep lined with care—
On lonesome seas, a soul all space would dare—
Some “learned churls” that did not live in vain;
Babylon and Nineveh, and radiant forms
Of marvelous beauty; Cleopatra's face
Set round with dented shields; brave chiefs, who died
Where serried legions met like clashing storms;