Canto 8Thought the Paraclete
Book 16. Part Seven - Pondicherry Circa 1927 – 1947
Pondicherry, c. 1927–1947
The Other Earths
An irised multitude of hills and seas,
And glint of brooks in the green wilderness,
5And trackless stars, and miracled symphonies
Of hues that float in ethers shadowless,
A dance of fireflies in the fretted gloom,
In a pale midnight the moon’s silver flare,
Fire-importunities of scarlet bloom
10And bright suddenness of wings in a golden air,
Strange bird and animal forms like memories cast
On the rapt silence of unearthly woods,
Calm faces of the gods on backgrounds vast
Bringing the marvel of the infinitudes,
15Through glimmering veils of wonder and delight
World after world bursts on the awakened sight.
Thought the Paraclete
As some bright archangel in vision flies
Plunged in dream-caught spirit immensities,
20Past the long green crests of the seas of life,
Past the orange skies of the mystic mind
Flew my thought self-lost in the vasts of God.
Sleepless wide great glimmering wings of wind
Bore the gold-red seeking of feet that trod
25Space and Time’s mute vanishing ends. The face
Lustred, pale-blue-lined of the hippogriff,
Eremite, sole, daring the bourneless ways,
Over world-bare summits of timeless being
Gleamed; the deep twilights of the world-abyss
30Failed below. Sun-realms of supernal seeing,