Canto 5An Image

Book 4. Part Four - Calcutta and Chandernagore 1907 – 1910

Calcutta and Chandernagore, 1907–1910

I have drunk wine of the kingdoms divine and have heard the change of

music strange from a lyre which our hands cannot master;

Doors have swung wide in the chambers of pride where the Gods reside

5and the Apsaras dance in their circles faster and faster.

For thou art she whom we first can see when we pass the bounds of the

mortal,

There at the gates of the heavenly states thou hast planted thy wand

enchanted over the head of the Yogin waving.

10From thee are the dream and the shadows that seem and the fugitive lights

that delude us;

Thine is the shade in which visions are made; sped by thy hands from

celestial lands come the souls that rejoice for ever.

Into thy dream-worlds we pass or look in thy magic glass, then beyond

15thee we climb out of Space and Time to the peak of divine endeavour.

An Image

Rushing from Troy like a cloud on the plains the Trojans thundered,

Just as a storm comes thundering, thick with the dust of kingdoms,

Edged with the devious dance of the lightning, so all Troas

20Loud with the roar of the chariots, loud with the vaunt and the war-cry,

Rushed from Troywards gleaming with spears and rolled on enormous.

Joyous as ever Paris led them glancing in armour,

Brilliant with gold like a bridegroom, playing with death and the battle

Even as apart in his chamber he played with his beautiful Helen,

25Touching her body rejoiced with a low and lyrical laughter,

So he laughed as he smote his foemen. Round him the arrows,

Round him the spears of the Argives sang like the voices of maidens

Trilling the anthem of bridal bliss, the chant hymeneal;

Round him the warriors fell like flowers strewn at a bridal

30Red with the beauty of blood.