Canto 50Liberation [2]
Book 16. Part Seven - Pondicherry Circa 1927 – 1947
Sonnets
The Body
This body which was once my universe,
Is now a pittance carried by the soul, —
5Its Titan’s motion bears this scanty purse,
Pacing through vastness to a vaster goal.
Too small was it to meet the giant need
That only infinitude can satisfy:
He keeps it still, for in the folds is hid
10His secret passport to eternity.
In his front an endless Time and Space deploy
The landscape of their golden happenings;
His heart is filled with sweet and violent joy,
His mind is upon great and distant things.
15How grown with all the world conterminous
Is the little dweller in this narrow house!
Liberation [2]
My mind, my soul grow larger than all Space;
Time founders in that vastness glad and nude:
20The body fades, an outline, a dim trace,
A memory in the spirit’s solitude.
This universe is a vanishing circumstance
In the glory of a white infinity
Beautiful and bare for the Immortal’s dance,
25House-room of my immense felicity.
In the thrilled happy giant void within
Thought lost in light and passion drowned in bliss,
Changing into a stillness hyaline,
Obey the edict of the Eternal’s peace.
30Life’s now the Ineffable’s dominion;
Nature is ended and the spirit alone.