Canto 13Parabrahman
Book 3. Part Three - Baroda and Bengal Circa 1900 – 1909
Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900–1909
I hold the sky
Together and upbear the teeming earth.
I was the eternal thinker at my birth
5And shall be, though I die.
Life and Death
Life, death, — death, life; the words have led for ages
Our thought and consciousness and firmly seemed
Two opposites; but now long-hidden pages
10Are opened, liberating truths undreamed.
Life only is, or death is life disguised, —
Life a short death until by life we are surprised.
Evening
A golden evening, when the thoughtful sun
15Rejects its usual pomp in going, trees
That bend down to their green companion
And fruitful mother, vaguely whispering, — these
And a wide silent sea. Such hour is nearest God, —
Rich like old age when the long ways have all been trod.
20Parabrahman
These wanderings of the suns, these stars at play
In the due measure that they chose of old,
Nor only these, but all the immense array
Of objects that long Time, far Space can hold,
25Poems from Ahana and Other Poems
Are divine moments. They are thoughts that form,
They are vision in the Self of things august
And therefore grandly real. Rule and norm
Are processes that they themselves adjust.
30The Self of things is not their outward view,
A Force within decides. That Force is He;
His movement is the shape of things we knew,
Movement of Thought is Space and Time. A free
And sovereign master of His world within,
35He is not bound by what He does or makes,
He is not bound by virtue or by sin,
Awake who sleeps and when He sleeps awakes.
He is not bound by waking or by sleep;
He is not bound by anything at all.
40Laws are that He may conquer them. To creep
Or soar is at His will, to rise or fall.
One from of old possessed Himself above
Who was not anyone nor had a form,
Nor yet was formless. Neither hate nor love
45Could limit His perfection, peace nor storm.
He is, we cannot say; for Nothing too
Is His conception of Himself unguessed.
He dawns upon us and we would pursue,
But who has found Him or what arms possessed?
50He is not anything, yet all is He;
He is not all but far exceeds that scope.
Both Time and Timelessness sink in that sea:
Time is a wave and Space a wandering drop.