Canto 17Trance of Waiting
Book 16. Part Seven - Pondicherry Circa 1927 – 1947
Lone on my summits of calm I have brooded with voices around me,
Murmurs of silence that steep mind in a luminous sleep,
Whispers from things beyond thought in the Secrecy flame-white for
ever,
5Unscanned heights that reply seek from the inconscient deep.
Distant below me the ocean of life with its passionate surges
Pales like a pool that is stirred by the wings of a shadowy bird.
Thought has flown back from its wheelings and stoopings, the
nerve-beat of living
10Stills; my spirit at peace bathes in a mighty release.
Wisdom supernal looks down on me, Knowledge mind cannot
measure;
Light that no vision can render garments the silence with
splendour.
15Filled with a rapturous Presence the crowded spaces of being
Tremble with the Fire that knows, thrill with the might of
repose.
Earth is now girdled with trance and Heaven is put round her for
vesture.
20Wings that are brilliant with fate sleep at Eternity’s gate.
Time waits, vacant, the Lightning that kindles, the Word that
transfigures;
Space is a stillness of God building his earthly abode.
All waits hushed for the fiat to come and the tread of the Eternal;
25Passion of a bliss yet to be sweeps from Infinity’s sea.