Canto 7Life
Book 15. Part Six - Baroda and Pondicherry Circa 1902 – 1936
Poems Past and Present
Life
Mystic daughter of Delight,
Life, thou ecstasy,
5Let the radius of thy flight
Be eternity.
On thy wings thou bearest high
Glory and disdain,
Godhead and mortality,
10Ecstasy and pain.
Take me in thy bold embrace
Without weak reserve,
Body dire and unveiled face;
Faint not, Life, nor swerve.
15All thy bliss I would explore,
All thy tyranny.
Cruel like the lion’s roar,
Sweet like springtide be.
Like a Titan I would take,
20Like a God enjoy,
Like a man contend and make,
Revel like a boy.
More I will not ask of thee,
Nor my fate would choose;
25King or conquered let me be,
Vanquish, Life, or lose.
Even in rags I am a god;
Fallen, I am divine;
High I triumph when down-trod,
30Long I live when slain.