Canto 17The Triumph-Song of Trishuncou

Book 3. Part Three - Baroda and Bengal Circa 1900 – 1909

I shall not die.

Although this body, when the spirit tires

Of its cramped residence, shall feed the fires,

My house consumes, not I.

5Leaving that case

I find out ample and ethereal room.

My spirit shall avoid the hungry tomb,

Deceiving death’s embrace.

Night shall contain

10The sun in its cold depths; Time too must cease;

The stars that labour shall have their release.

I cease not, I remain.

Ere the first seeds

Were sown on earth, I was already old,

15And when now unborn planets shall grow cold

My history proceeds.

I am the light

In stars, the strength of lions and the joy

Of mornings; I am man and maid and boy,

20Protean, infinite.

I am a tree

That stands out singly from the infinite blue;

I am the quiet falling of the dew

And am the unmeasured sea.

25I hold the sky

Together and upbear the teeming earth.

I was the eternal thinker at my birth

And shall be, though I die.