Canto 4The Mother of Dreams
Book 4. Part Four - Calcutta and Chandernagore 1907 – 1910
Goddess, supreme Mother of Dream, by thy ivory doors when thou
standest,
Who are they then that come down unto men in thy visions that troop,
group upon group, down the path of the shadows slanting?
5Dream after dream, they flash and they gleam with the flame of the stars
still around them;
Shadows at thy side in a darkness ride where the wild fires dance, stars
glow and glance and the random meteor glistens;
There are voices that cry to their kin who reply; voices sweet, at the heart
10they beat and ravish the soul as it listens.
What then are these lands and these golden sands and these seas more
radiant than earth can imagine?
Who are those that pace by the purple waves that race to the cliff-bound
floor of thy jasper shore under skies in which mystery muses,
15Lapped in moonlight not of our night or plunged in sunshine that is not
diurnal?
Who are they coming thy Oceans roaming with sails whose strands are not
made by hands, an unearthly wind advances?
Why do they join in a mystic line with those on the sands linking hands in
20strange and stately dances?
Thou in the air, with a flame in thy hair, the whirl of thy wonders watching,
Holdest the night in thy ancient right, mother divine, hyacinthine, with a
girdle of beauty defended.
Sworded with fire, attracting desire, thy tenebrous kingdom thou keepest,
25Starry-sweet, with the moon at thy feet, now hidden now seen the clouds
between in the gloom and the drift of thy tresses.
Only to those whom thy fancy chose, O thou heart-free, is it given to see
thy witchcraft and feel thy caresses.
Open the gate where thy children wait in their world of a beauty
30undarkened.
High-throned on a cloud, victorious, proud I have espied Maghavan ride
when the armies of wind are behind him;
Food has been given for my tasting from heaven and fruit of immortal
sweetness;