Book One. The Book of Beginnings
| Music | Book One. Canto One:The Symbol Dawn |
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001 It was the hour before the Gods awake. 002 Across the path of the divine Event 003 The huge foreboding mind of Night, alone 004 In her unlit temple of eternity, 005 Lay stretched immobile upon Silence’ marge. 006 Almost one felt, opaque, impenetrable, 007 In the sombre symbol of her eyeless muse 008 The abysm of the unbodied Infinite; 009 A fathomless zero occupied the world. |
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023 Athwart the vain enormous trance of Space, 024 Its formless stupor without mind or life, 025 A shadow spinning through a soulless Void, 026 Thrown back once more into unthinking dreams, 027 Earth wheeled abandoned in the hollow gulfs 028 Forgetful of her spirit and her fate. |
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030 Then something in the inscrutable darkness stirred; 031 A nameless movement, an unthought Idea 032 Insistent, dissatisfied, without an aim, 033 Something that wished but knew not how to be, 034 Teased the Inconscient to wake Ignorance. |
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048 An unshaped consciousness desired light 049 And a blank prescience yearned towards distant change. 050 As if a childlike finger laid on a cheek 051 Reminded of the endless need in things 052 The heedless Mother of the universe, 053 An infant longing clutched the sombre Vast. |
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058 Arrived from the other side of boundlessness 059 An eye of deity peered through the dumb deeps; 060 A scout in a reconnaissance from the sun, 061 It seemed amid a heavy cosmic rest, 062 The torpor of a sick and weary world, 063 To seek for a spirit sole and desolate 064 Too fallen to recollect forgotten bliss. |
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096 The darkness failed and slipped like a falling cloak 097 From the reclining body of a god. |
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102 A glamour from unreached transcendences 103 Iridescent with the glory of the Unseen, 104 A message from the unknown immortal Light 105 Ablaze upon creation’s quivering edge, 106 Dawn built her aura of magnificent hues 107 And buried its seed of grandeur in the hours. |
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130 Earth felt the Imperishable’s passage close: 131 The waking ear of Nature heard her steps 132 And wideness turned to her its limitless eye, 133 And, scattered on sealed depths, her luminous smile 134 Kindled to fire the silence of the worlds. |
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140 Here where our half-lit ignorance skirts the gulfs 141 On the dumb bosom of the ambiguous earth, 142 Here where one knows not even the step in front 143 And Truth has her throne on the shadowy back of doubt, 144 On this anguished and precarious field of toil 145 Outspread beneath some large indifferent gaze, 146 Impartial witness of our joy and bale, 147 Our prostrate soil bore the awakening ray. |
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186 And Savitri too awoke among these tribes 187 That hastened to join the brilliant Summoner’s chant . . . 205 A narrow movement on Time’s deep abysm, 206 Life’s fragile littleness denied the power, 207 The proud and conscious wideness and the bliss 208 She had brought with her into the human form, 209 The calm delight that weds one soul to all, 210 The key to the flaming doors of ecstasy. |
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247 Thus trapped in the gin of earthly destinies, 248 Awaiting her ordeal’s hour abode, 249 Outcast from her inborn felicity, 250 Accepting life’s obscure terrestrial robe, 251 Hiding herself even from those she loved, 252 The godhead greater by a human fate. |
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282 Against the evil at life’s afflicted roots, 283 Her own calamity its private sign, 284 Of her pangs she made a mystic poignant sword. |
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307 At the summons of her body’s voiceless call 308 Her strong far-winging spirit travelled back, 309 Back to the yoke of ignorance and fate, 310 Back to the labour and stress of mortal days, 311 Lighting a pathway through strange symbol dreams 312 Across the ebbing of the seas of sleep. |
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341 Immobile in herself, she gathered force. 342 This was the day when Satyavan must die. |
| Music | Book One. Canto Two:The Issue |
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025 An absolute supernatural darkness falls 026 On man sometimes when he draws near to God: 027 An hour arrives when fail all Nature’s means; 028 Forced out from the protecting Ignorance 029 And flung back on his naked primal need, 030 He at length must cast from him his surface soul 031 And be the ungarbed entity within: 032 That hour had fallen now on Savitri. |
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112 And the mighty wildness of the primitive earth 113 And the brooding multitude of patient trees 114 And the musing sapphire leisure of the sky 115 And the solemn weight of the slowly-passing months 116 Had left in her deep room for thought and God. 117 There was her drama’s radiant prologue lived. |
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124 Here with the suddenness divine advents have, 125 Repeating the marvel of the first descent, 126 Changing to rapture the dull earthly round, 127 Love came to her hiding the shadow, Death. 128 Well might he find in her his perfect shrine. |
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142 As in a mystic and dynamic dance 143 A priestess of immaculate ecstasies 144 Inspired and ruled from Truth’s revealing vault 145 Moves in some prophet cavern of the gods, 146 A heart of silence in the hands of joy 147 Inhabited with rich creative beats 148 A body like a parable of dawn 149 That seemed a niche for veiled divinity 150 Or golden temple-door to things beyond. |
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161 As might a soul fly like a hunted bird, 162 Escaping with tired wings from a world of storms, 163 And a quiet reach like a remembered breast, 164 In a haven of safety and splendid soft repose 165 One could drink life back in streams of honey-fire, 166 Recover the lost habit of happiness, 167 Feel her bright nature’s glorious ambience, 168 And preen joy in her warmth and colour’s rule. |
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246 A creature born to bend beneath the yoke, 247 A chattel and a plaything of Time’s lords, 248 Or one more pawn who comes destined to be pushed 249 One slow move forward on a measureless board 250 In the chess-play of the earth-soul with Doom,- 251 Such is the human figure drawn by Time. |
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252 A conscious frame was here, a self-born Force. |
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265 A grey tribunal of the Ignorance, 266 An Inquisition of the priests of Night 267 In judgment sit on the adventurer soul, 268 And the dual tables and the Karmic norm 269 Restrain the Titan in us and the God: 269 Pain with its lash, joy with its silver bribe 270 Guard the Wheel’s circling immobility. |
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274 Death stays the journeying discoverer, Life. |
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327 A magic leverage suddenly is caught 328 That moves the veiled Ineffable’s timeless will: 329 A prayer, a master act, a king idea 330 Can link man’s strength to a transcendent Force. |
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364 A flaming warrior from the eternal peaks 365 Empowered to force the door denied and closed 366 Smote from Death’s visage its dumb absolute 367 And burst the bounds of consciousness and Time. |
| Music | Book One. Canto Three:The Yoga of the King: The Yoga of the Soul’s Release |
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001 A world’s desire compelled her mortal birth. 002 One in the front of the immemorial quest, . . . 007 A thinker and toiler in the ideal’s air, 008 Brought down to earth’s dumb need her radiant power. |
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220 Lifting the heavy curtain of the flesh 221 He stood upon a threshold serpent-watched, 222 And peered into gleaming endless corridors, 223 Silent and listening in the silent heart 224 For the coming of the new and the unknown. 225 He gazed across the empty stillnesses 226 And heard the footsteps of the undreamed Idea 227 In the far avenues of the Beyond. |
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359 There knowing herself by her own termless self, 360 Wisdom supernal, wordless, absolute 361 Sat uncompanioned in the eternal Calm, 362 All-seeing, motionless, sovereign and alone. |
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451 An old pull of subconscious cords renews; 452 It draws the unwilling spirit from the heights, 453 Or a dull gravitation drags us down 454 To the blind driven inertia of our base. 455 This too the supreme Diplomat can use, 456 He makes our fall a means for greater rise. |
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481 Always the power poured back like sudden rain, 482 Or slowly in his breast a presence grew; 483 It clambered back to some remembered height 484 Or soared above the peak from which it fell. 485 Each time he rose there was a larger poise, 486 A dwelling on a higher spirit plane; 487 The Light remained in him a longer space. |
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534 Already in him was seen that task of Power: 535 Life made its home on the high tops of self; 536 His soul, mind, heart became a single sun; 537 Only life’s lower reaches remained dim. |
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553 Thence stooped the eagles of Omniscience. 554 A dense veil was rent, a mighty whisper heard; . . . 558 The voices that an inner listening hears 559 Conveyed to him their prophet utterances, 560 And flame-wrapped outbursts of the immortal Word 561 And flashes of an occult revealing Light 562 Approached him from the unreachable Secrecy. |
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575 Oft inspiration with her lightning feet, 576 A sudden messenger from the all-seeing tops, 577 Traversed the soundless corridors of his mind 578 Bringing her rhythmic sense of hidden things. . . . 596 All-vision gathered into a single ray, 597 As when the eyes stare at an invisible point 598 Till through the intensity of one luminous spot 599 An apocalypse of a world of images 600 Enters into the kingdom of the seer. |
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615 Or she gathered the lost secrets dropped by Time 616 In the dust and crannies of his mounting route 617 Mid old forsaken dreams of hastening Mind 618 And buried remnants of forgotten space. |
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619 A traveller between summit and abyss, 620 She joined the distant ends, the viewless deeps |
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696 The inspiring goddess entered a mortal’s breast, 697 Made there her study of divining thought 698 And sanctuary of prophetic speech 699 And sat upon the tripod seat of mind: 700 All was made wide above, all lit below. 701 In darkness’ core she dug out wells of light, 702 On the undiscovered depths imposed a form, 703 Lent a vibrant cry to the unuttered vasts |
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809 A genius heightened in his body’s cells 810 That knew the meaning of his fate-hedged works 811 Akin to the march of unaccomplished Powers 812 Beyond life’s arc in spirit’s immensities. 813 Apart he lived in his mind’s solitude, 814 A demigod shaping the lives of men: 815 One soul’s ambition lifted up the race; . . . 819 He drew the energies that transmute an age. |
| Music | Book One. Canto Four:The Secret Knowledge |
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001 On a height he stood that looked towards greater heights. 002 Our early approaches to the Infinite 003 Are sunrise splendours on a marvellous verge 004 While lingers yet unseen the glorious sun. 005 What now we see is a shadow of what must come. |
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033 A shapeless memory lingers in us still 034 And sometimes, when our sight is turned within, 035 Earth’s ignorant veil is lifted from our eyes; 036 There is a short miraculous escape. |
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040 Our souls can visit in great lonely hours 041 Still regions of imperishable Light, 042 All-seeing eagle-peaks of silent Power 043 And moon-flame oceans of swift fathomless Bliss 044 And calm immensities of spirit space. |
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111 A treasure of honey in the combs of God, 112 A Splendour burning in a tenebrous cloak, 113 It is our glory of the flame of God, 114 Our golden fountain of the world’s delight, 115 An immortality cowled in the cape of death, 116 The shape of our unborn divinity. |
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160 Along a path of aeons serpentine 161 In the coiled blackness of her nescient course 162 The Earth-Goddess toils across the sands of Time. |
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163 A Being is in her whom she hopes to know, 164 A Word speaks to her heart she cannot hear, 165 A Fate compels whose form she cannot see. 166 In her unconscious orbit through the Void 167 Out of her mindless depths she strives to rise, 168 A perilous life her gain, a struggling joy; |
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178 Ignorant and weary and invincible, 179 She seeks through the soul’s war and quivering pain 180 The pure perfection her marred nature needs, 181 A breath of Godhead on her stone and mire. |
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185 A light grows in her, she assumes a voice, 186 Her state she learns to read and the act she has done, 187 But the one needed truth eludes her grasp, 188 Herself and all of which she is the sign. |
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199 A vision meets her of supernal Powers 200 That draw her as if mighty kinsmen lost 201 Approaching with estranged great luminous gaze. 202 Then is she moved to all that she is not 203 And stretches arms to what was never hers. |
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204 Outstretching arms to the unconscious Void, 205 Passionate she prays to invisible forms of Gods 206 Soliciting from dumb Fate and toiling Time 207 What most she needs, what most exceeds her scope, 208 A Mind unvisited by illusion’s gleams, 209 A Will expressive of soul’s deity, 210 A Strength not forced to stumble by its speed, 211 A Joy that drags not sorrow as its shade. |
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332 In Matter shall be lit the spirit’s glow, . . . 338 A few shall see what none yet understands; 339 God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep; 340 For man shall not know the coming till its hour 341 And belief shall be not till the work is done. |
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394 In the wide signless ether of the Self, 395 In the unchanging Silence white and nude, 396 Aloof, resplendent like gold dazzling suns 397 Veiled by the ray no mortal eye can bear, 398 The Spirit’s bare and absolute potencies 399 Burn in the solitude of the thoughts of God. |
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467 An outstretched Hand is felt upon our lives. 468 It is near us in unnumbered bodies and births; 469 In its unslackening grasp it keeps for us safe 470 The one inevitable supreme result 471 No will can take away and no doom change, 472 The crown of conscious Immortality, 473 The godhead promised to our struggling souls 474 When first man’s heart dared death and suffered life. |
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499 In the mystery of the deeps that God has built 500 For his abode below the Thinker’s sight, . . . 506 In this gold dome on a black dragon base, 507 The conscious Force that acts in Nature’s breast, 508 A dark-robed labourer in the cosmic scheme 509 Carrying clay images of unborn gods, . . . 513 Absolves from hour to hour her secret charge. |
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551 There are Two who are One and play in many worlds; 552 In Knowledge and Ignorance they have spoken and met 553 And light and darkness are their eyes’ interchange; |
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627 His works, his thoughts have been devised by her, 628 His being is a mirror vast of hers: 629 Active, inspired by her he speaks and moves; 630 His deeds obey her heart’s unspoken demands: |
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736 The master of existence lurks in us 737 And plays at hide-and-seek with his own Force; 738 In Nature’s instrument loiters secret God. 739 The Immanent lives in man as in his house; 740 He has made the universe his pastime’s field, 741 A vast gymnasium of his works of might. |
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771 Then in a figure of divinity 772 The Maker shall recast us and impose 773 A plan of godhead on the mortal’s mould 774 Lifting our finite minds to his infinite, 775 Touching the moment with eternity. |
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776 This transfiguration is earth’s due to heaven: 777 A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme: 778 His nature we must put on as he put ours; 779 We are sons of God and must be even as he: 780 His human portion, we must grow divine. 781 Our life is a paradox with God for key. |
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786 For the key is hid and by the Inconscient kept; 787 The secret God beneath the threshold dwells. |
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824 He is the explorer and the mariner 825 On a secret inner ocean without bourne: 826 He is the adventurer and cosmologist 827 Of a magic earth’s obscure geography. |
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873 Or passing through a gate of pillar-rocks, . . . 884 He leaves the last lands, crosses the ultimate seas, 885 He turns to eternal things his symbol quest; 886 Life changes for him its time-constructed scenes, 887 Its images veiling infinity. |
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888 Earth’s borders recede and the terrestrial air 889 Hangs round him no longer its translucent veil. . . . 892 The eyes of mortal body plunge their gaze 893 Into Eyes that look upon eternity. |
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894 A greater world Time’s traveller must explore. 895 At last he hears a chanting on the heights 896 And the far speaks and the unknown grows near: 897 He crosses the boundaries of the unseen 898 And passes over the edge of mortal sight 899 To a new vision of himself and things. |
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921 But none learns whither through the unknown he sails 922 Or what secret mission the great Mother gave. 923 In the hidden strength of her omnipotent Will, 924 Driven by her breath across life’s tossing deep, 925 Through the thunder’s roar and through the windless hush, 926 Through fog and mist where nothing more is seen, 927 He carries her sealed orders in his breast. |
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928 Late will he know, opening the mystic script, 929 Whether to a blank port in the Unseen 930 He goes or, armed with her fiat, to discover 931 A new mind and body in the city of God 931 And enshrine the Immortal in his glory’s house 932 And make the finite one with Infinity. |
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941 A power is on him from her occult force 942 That ties him to his own creation’s fate, 943 And never can the mighty Traveller rest 944 And never can the mystic voyage cease 945 Till the nescient dusk is lifted from man’s soul 946 And the morns of God have overtaken his night. |
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947 As long as Nature lasts, he too is there, 948 For this is sure that he and she are one; |
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957 This constant will she covered with her sport, 958 To evoke a Person in the impersonal Void, 959 With the Truth-Light strike earth’s massive roots of trance, 960 Wake a dumb self in the inconscient depths 961 And raise a lost Power from its python sleep 962 That the eyes of the Timeless might look out from Time 963 And the world manifest the unveiled Divine. |
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964 For this he left his white infinity 965 And laid on the spirit the burden of the flesh, 966 That Godhead’s seed might flower in mindless Space. |
| Music | Book One. Canto Five:The Yoga of the King: The Yoga of the Spirit’s Freedom and Greatness |
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001 This knowledge first he had of time-born men. 002 Admitted through a curtain of bright mind 003 That hangs between our thoughts and absolute sight, 004 He found the occult cave, the mystic door 005 Near to the well of vision in the soul, 006 And entered where the Wings of Glory brood 007 In the silent space where all is for ever known. |
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020 There in a hidden chamber closed and mute 021 Are kept the record graphs of the cosmic scribe, 022 And there the tables of the sacred Law, . . . 027 The symbol powers of number and of form, 028 And the secret code of the history of the world 029 And Nature’s correspondence with the soul 030 Are written in the mystic heart of Life. |
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031 In the glow of the spirit’s room of memories 032 He could recover the luminous marginal notes 033 Dotting with light the crabbed ambiguous scroll, |
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071 He saw the unshaped thought in soulless forms, 072 Knew Matter pregnant with spiritual sense, 073 Mind dare the study of the Unknowable, 074 Life its gestation of the Golden Child. |
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079 A larger lustre lit the mighty page. 080 A purpose mingled with the whims of Time, 081 A meaning met the stumbling pace of Chance 082 And Fate revealed a chain of seeing Will; 083 A conscious wideness filled the old dumb Space. 084 In the Void he saw throned the Omniscience supreme. |
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085 A Will, a hope immense now seized his heart, 086 And to discern the superhuman’s form 087 He raised his eyes to unseen spiritual heights, 088 Aspiring to bring down a greater world. |
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129 A packed assemblage of crude tentative lives 130 Are pieced into a tessellated whole. |
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158 An animal with some instincts of a god, 159 His life a story too common to be told, 160 His deeds a number summing up to nought, 161 His consciousness a torch lit to be quenched, 162 His hope a star above a cradle and grave. |
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174 Impassive he lived immune from earthly hopes, 175 A figure in the ineffable Witness’ shrine 176 Pacing the vast cathedral of his thoughts 177 Under its arches dim with infinity 178 And heavenward brooding of invisible wings. |
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184 A universal light was in his eyes, 185 A golden influx flowed through heart and brain; 186 A Force came down into his mortal limbs, 187 A current from eternal seas of Bliss; 188 He felt the invasion and the nameless joy. |
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207 One-pointed to the immaculate Delight, 208 Questing for God as for a splendid prey, 209 He mounted burning like a cone of fire. |
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238 His spirit mingles with eternity’s heart 239 And bears the silence of the Infinite. |
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251 His nature shuddered in the Unknown’s grasp. . . . 256 In a whirlwind circuit of delight and force 257 Hurried into unimaginable depths, 258 Upborne into immeasurable heights, 259 It was torn out from its mortality 260 And underwent a new and bourneless change. |
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267 As when a timeless Eye annuls the hours 268 Abolishing the agent and the act, 269 So now his spirit shone out wide, blank, pure: 270 His wakened mind became an empty slate 271 On which the Universal and Sole could write. |
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290 The little ego’s ring could join no more; 291 In the enormous spaces of the self 292 The body now seemed only a wandering shell, 293 His mind the many-frescoed outer court 294 Of an imperishable Inhabitant: 295 His spirit breathed a superhuman air. |
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319 There was no small death-hunted creature more, 320 No fragile form of being to preserve 321 From an all-swallowing Immensity. |
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330 A secret Nature stripped of her defence, . . . 333 Lay bare to the burning splendour of his will. . . . 345 Her diagrams of geometric force, 346 Her potencies of marvel-fraught design 347 Courted employment by an earth-nursed might. |
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476 A border sovereign is the occult Force. . . . 494 A magic porch of entry glimmering 495 Quivered in a penumbra of screened Light, 496 A court of the mystical traffic of the worlds, 497 A balcony and miraculous fa‡ade. |
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524 Ascending and descending twixt life’s poles 525 The seried kingdoms of the graded Law 526 Plunged from the Everlasting into Time, . . . 530 Climbed back from Time into undying Self, 531 Up a golden ladder carrying the soul, 532 Tying with diamond threads the Spirit’s extremes. |
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619 Sunbelts of knowledge, moonbelts of delight 620 Stretched out in an ecstasy of widenesses 621 Beyond our indigent corporeal range. |