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Hail to the fallen, the fearless! hail to the conquered, the noble!
I out of ancient India great and unhappy and deathless,
I in a loftiest(tentative
reading)
nation though subject born, salute thee,
Thou too great and unfortunate! All is not given by Nature
Only to Force and the strong and the violent. Courage and wisdom,
Steadfast will and the calm magnificent dream of thy spirit
Crown thee for ever, 0 Emperor! Fiercely by Destiny broken,
Hurled (cast)
from thy throne and defeated, forsaken, a wandering exile,
Far from the hills of thy land and thy fallen and vanquished nation,
Yet has thy glory overtopped and the deathless pride of thy laurel
Conquered the conqueror’s, Haile Selassie, Lion of Judah.
France for her southern borders fearing spared the aggressor.
England the sea queen, England the fortunate, England the victor
Fled like a dog from the whip of the menace yelping for succour,
Loudly to Frank and to Greek and to Turk and to Yugoslav calling
"Help me! I dare not alone: he will shatter my fleet and my empire."
You did not cower, African people, you did not tremble.
Armed but with rifle and spear you fronted the legions of Caesar.
Statesman wise and beneficent emperor, patriott hero,
King of the Sahafvas(tentative
reading),
Haile Selassie, Lion of Judah.
Page-596
In
a mounting as of sea-tides
In a mounting as of sea-tides, in a rippling as of invisible waters,
On a cry in me my soul is uplifted, in a passion of my nature
My heart climbs up towards thee, O unimaginable Wonder and Resplendence,
In its(a)
striving for the caress of thy Light and for the embrace of thy Presence.
If once given were but a touch of thy feet on the thrilled bosom of my
longing,
But a glance of thy eyes mingling with mine in the recesses and the silence,
Such a rapture would envelop me, such a fire of transfiguring effulgence,
I could never again be as a man upon this earth, but one immortal.
For my mind would be dissolved in a sun-glory of God-vision and of knowledge,
And my heart would be made suddenly more pure and determined and self-tranquil,
And my nerves and my body would transmute into an ethereal divineness,
A fit vesture for the godhead thou buildest in me, for the immortal thy adorer.
0 thou Life of my life and the unseen heart of its ecstasy and its beating,
0 Face that was disclosed in the beginning of the worlds and the immenseness,
Let thy Flame-wisdom leap down upon the coilings of our python inconscience,
Let the Love-wine be poured out in Thy chalice, let me be drunk with it for ever.
I shall meet thee in the ocean of thy stillness, in the ether of thy splendour,
Thy Force shall be in my veins like the ichor in the Unaging who are deathless;
My soul shall be as one breath with thy soul and thy infinity around thee,
And shall quiver into the vision of thy beauty and the marvel of thy sweetness.
Page-597
The
Death of a God
Arise now, tread out the fire!
Scatter the ashes of a God through the stars.
Forget to hope and aspire.
Let us paint our prison, let us strengthen its bars.
Lo, now he is dead and the greatness that cumbered the world and Time’s ways
Has vanished like a golden shadow thrust out from the anguish of the ages;
The glory and burden, the sunlight and the passion have left our days;
Once more we can wear the grey livery of Death and gather in his wages.
All that drew back from his splendour, fleeing as ashamed from the light and the beauty and invincible sweetness
Now returns vaunting this darkness and littleness, this fret of life’s fever,
its cruel and sad incompleteness.
All that is false and wry and little are freed to, follow their nature once more
Close time’s brilliant pages!
Give back to life the old tables; its dull ease, its bowed greyness restore.
Page-598
Soul,
my soul
Soul, my soul, reascend over the edge of life, -
Far, far from the din burn into tranquil skies,
Cross bright ranges of mind measureless, visioned, white;
Thoughts sail down as if ships carrying bales of light,
Truth’s form-robes by the Seers woven from spirit-threads,
From wide havens where luminous argosies,
Gold-robed Wisdom’s divine traffic and merchandise;
But there pause not but go far beyond
Where thy natural home motionless vast and mute
Waits thy tread; on a throne facing infinity
Thought-nude, void of the world, one with the silence be.
Sole, self-poised and unmoved thou shalt behold below
Hierarchies and domains, godheads and potencies,
Titans, demons and men each in his cosmic role;
Midst all these in the lone centre of forces spun,
Fate there under thy feet turning the wheels of Time,
The World Law thou shalt know1
mapped in its codes sublime,
Yet thyself shalt remain viewless, eternal, free.
1
view
Page-599
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