Canto 36Cosmic Consciousness

Book 16. Part Seven - Pondicherry Circa 1927 – 1947

Sonnets

The Pilgrim of the Night

I made an assignation with the Night;

In the abyss was fixed our rendezvous:

5In my breast carrying God’s deathless light

I came her dark and dangerous heart to woo.

I left the glory of the illumined Mind

And the calm rapture of the divinised soul

And travelled through a vastness dim and blind

10To the grey shore where her ignorant waters roll.

I walk by the chill wave through the dull slime

And still that weary journeying knows no end;

Lost is the lustrous godhead beyond Time,

There comes no voice of the celestial Friend.

15And yet I know my footprints’ track shall be

A pathway towards Immortality.

Cosmic Consciousness

I have wrapped the wide world in my wider self

And Time and Space my spirit’s seeing are.

20I am the god and demon, ghost and elf,

I am the wind’s speed and the blazing star.

All Nature is the nursling of my care,

I am the struggle and the eternal rest;

The world’s joy thrilling runs through me, I bear

25The sorrow of millions in my lonely breast.

I have learned a close identity with all,

Yet am by nothing bound that I become;

Carrying in me the universe’s call

I mount to my imperishable home.

30I pass beyond Time and life on measureless wings,

Yet still am one with born and unborn things.