Canto 41Krishna
Book 16. Part Seven - Pondicherry Circa 1927 – 1947
Pondicherry, c. 1927–1947
The Stone Goddess
In a town of gods, housed in a little shrine,
From sculptured limbs the Godhead looked at me, —
5A living Presence deathless and divine,
A Form that harboured all infinity.
The great World-Mother and her mighty will
Inhabited the earth’s abysmal sleep,
Voiceless, omnipotent, inscrutable,
10Mute in the desert and the sky and deep.
Now veiled with mind she dwells and speaks no word,
Voiceless, inscrutable, omniscient,
Hiding until our soul has seen, has heard
The secret of her strange embodiment,
15One in the worshipper and the immobile shape,
A beauty and mystery flesh or stone can drape.
Krishna
At last I find a meaning of soul’s birth
Into this universe terrible and sweet,
20I who have felt the hungry heart of earth
Aspiring beyond heaven to Krishna’s feet.
I have seen the beauty of immortal eyes,
And heard the passion of the Lover’s flute,
And known a deathless ecstasy’s surprise
25And sorrow in my heart for ever mute.
Nearer and nearer now the music draws,
Life shudders with a strange felicity;
All Nature is a wide enamoured pause
Hoping her lord to touch, to clasp, to be.
30For this one moment lived the ages past;
The world now throbs fulfilled in me at last.