Canto 29Discoveries of Science
Book 16. Part Seven - Pondicherry Circa 1927 – 1947
Pondicherry, c. 1927–1947
Man the Mediator
A dumb Inconscient drew life’s stumbling maze,
A night of all things, packed and infinite:
5It made our consciousness a torch that plays
Between the Abyss and a supernal Light.
Our mind was framed a lens of segment sight
Piecing out inch by inch the world’s huge mass,
And reason a small hard theodolite
10Measuring unreally the measureless ways.
Yet is the dark Inconscient whence came all
The self-same Power that shines on high unwon:
Our Night shall be a sky purpureal,
Our torch transmute to a vast godhead’s sun.
15Rooted in mire heavenward man’s nature grows, —
His soul the dim bud of God’s flaming rose.
Discoveries of Science
I saw the electric stream on which is run
The world turned motes and spark-whirls of a Light,
20A Fire of which the nebula and sun
Are glints and flame-drops, scattered, eremite;
And veiled by viewless Light worked other Powers,
An Air of movement endless, unbegun,
Expanding and contracting in Time’s hours
25And the intangible ether of the One.
The surface finds, the screen-phenomenon,
Are Nature’s offered ransom, while behind
Her occult mysteries lie safe, unknown,
From the crude handling of the empiric Mind.
30Our truths discovered are but dust and trace
Of the eternal Energy in her race.