Canto 5Hell and Heaven
Book 15. Part Six - Baroda and Pondicherry Circa 1902 – 1936
In the silence of the night-time,
In the grey and formless eve,
When the thought is plagued with loveless
Memories that it cannot leave,
5When the dawn makes sudden beauty
Of a peevish clouded sky,
And the rain is sobbing slowly
And the wind makes weird reply,
Always comes her face before me
10And her voice is in my ear,
Beautiful and sad and cruel
With the azure eyes austere.
Cloudy figure once so luminous
With the light and life within
15When the soul came rippling outwards
And the red lips laughed at sin!
Poems Past and Present
Com’st thou with that marble visage
From what world instinct with pain
20Where we pay the price of passion
By a law our hearts disdain?
Cast it from thee, O thou goddess!
Earning with a smile release
From these sad imaginations,
25Rise into celestial peace.
Travel from the loveless places
That our mortal fears create,
Where thy natural heavens claim thee
And the Gods, thy brothers, wait.
30Then descend to me grown radiant,
Lighting up terrestrial ground
With the feet that brighten heaven
When the mighty dance goes round
And the high Gods beating measure
35Tread the maze that keeps the stars
Circling in their luminous orbits
Through the eternal thoroughfares.
All below is but confusion
Of desires that strive and cry,
40Some forbidden, some achieving
Anguish after ecstasy.
But above our radiant station
Is from which by doubt we fell,
Reaching only after Heaven
45And achieving only Hell.
Let the heart be king and master,
Let the brain exult and toil;
Disbelieve in good and evil,
God with Nature reconcile.
50Therefore, O rebellious sweetness,
Thou tookst arms for joy and love.
There achieve them! Take possession
Of our radiant seats above.