Canto 87“I”
Book 16. Part Seven - Pondicherry Circa 1927 – 1947
This strutting “I” of human self and pride
Is a puppet built by Nature for her use,
And dances as her strong compulsions bid,
Forcefully feeble, brilliantly obtuse.
5Our thinking is her leap of fluttering mind,
We hear and see by her constructed sense:
Our force is hers; her colours have combined
Our fly-upon-the-wheel magnificence.
He sits within who turns on her machine
10These beings, portions of his mystery,
Many dwarf beams of his great calm sunshine,
A reflex of his sole infinity.
One mighty Self of cosmic act and thought
Employs this figure of a unit nought.