Canto 86The Death of a God [1]
Book 16. Part Seven - Pondicherry Circa 1927 – 1947
Incomplete Poems
His mind became a beat of memory.
Sight, hearing changed towards our diminished scale;
The little views grew great, the great grew small.
5As yet some largeness was of inmost things
And he remembered in the formless sense
Proud kingdoms of intense and beautiful life
And love left free to do his absolute will
And dreams at once commuted into power.
10Affronting many starfields of our space
And shortening ever the vast lens of Time
He met a smaller movement of desire
Prisoned in the orbit of a few pale globes
And knew in front our little solar belt
15Hung casually among the giant stars.
Our earth received him mid her living forms.
Her deep inconscient motions packed and mute,
Her darknesses more wise than her small lights
Oppressed again his young divinity.
20The Death of a God [1]
THE EARTH VOICES
Arise now, tread out the fire!
Scatter the ashes of a God through the stars.
Forget to hope and aspire.
25Let us paint our prison, let us strengthen its bars.
Lo, now he is dead and the greatness that cumbered the world
and Time’s ways
Has vanished like a golden shadow thrust out from the
anguish of the ages;
30The glory and burden, the sunlight and the passion have left
our days;
Once more we can wear the grey livery of Death and
gather in his wages.