| OM, AMITAYA! measure not with words | |
| Th’ Immeasurable; nor sink the string of thought | |
| Into the Fathomless. Who asks doth err, | |
| Who answers, errs. Say nought! | |
| |
| The Books teach Darkness was, at first of all, | 5 |
| And Brahm, sole meditating in that Night: | |
| Look not for Brahm and the Beginning there! | |
| Nor him, nor any light | |
| |
| Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes, | |
| Or any searcher know by mortal mind; | 10 |
| Veil after veil will lift—but there must be | |
| Veil upon veil behind. | |
| |
| Stars sweep and question not. This is enough | |
| That life and death and joy and woe abide; | |
| And cause and sequence, and the course of time, | 15 |
| And Being’s ceaseless tide, | |
| |
| Which, ever changing, runs, linked like a river | |
| By ripples following ripples, fast or slow— | |
| The same yet not the same—from far-off fountain | |
| To where its waters flow | 20 |
| |
| Into the seas. These, steaming to the Sun, | |
| Give the lost wavelets back in cloudy fleece | |
| To trickle down the hills, and glide again; | |
| Having no pause or peace. | |
| |
| This is enough to know, the phantasms are; | 25 |
| The Heavens, Earths, Worlds, and changes changing them, | |
| A mighty whirling wheel of strife and stress | |
| Which none can stay or stem.… | |
| |
| If ye lay bound upon the wheel of change, | |
| And no way were of breaking from the chain, | 30 |
| The Heart of boundless Being is a curse, | |
| The Soul of Things fell Pain. | |
| |
| Ye are not bound! the Soul of Things is sweet, | |
| The Heart of Being is celestial rest; | |
| Stronger than woe is will: that which was Good | 35 |
| Doth pass to Better—Best. | |
| |
| I, Buddh, who wept with all my brothers’ tears, | |
| Whose heart was broken by a whole world’s woe, | |
| Laugh and am glad, for there is Liberty! | |
| Ho! ye who suffer! know | 40 |
| |
| Ye suffer from yourselves. None else compels, | |
| None other holds you that ye live and die, | |
| And whirl upon the wheel, and hug and kiss | |
| Its spokes of agony, | |
| |
| Its tire of tears, its nave of nothingness. | 45 |
| Behold, I show you Truth! Lower than hell, | |
| Higher than Heaven, outside the utmost stars, | |
| Farther than Brahm doth dwell, | |
| |
| Before beginning, and without an end, | |
| As space eternal and as surety sure, | 50 |
| Is fixed a Power divine which moves to good, | |
| Only its laws endure.… | |
| |
| That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder fields! | |
| The sesamum was sesamum, the corn | |
| Was corn. The Silence and the Darkness knew! | 55 |
| So is a man’s fate born.… | |
| |
| If he shall day by day dwell merciful, | |
| Holy and just and kind and true; and rend | |
| Desire from where it clings with bleeding roots, | |
| Till love of life have end: | 60 |
| |
| He—dying—leaveth as the sum of him | |
| A life-count closed, whose ills are dead and quit | |
| Whose good is quick and mighty, far and near, | |
| So that fruits follow it. | |
| |
| No need hath such to live as ye name life; | 65 |
| That which began in him when he began | |
| Is finished: he hath wrought the purpose through | |
| Of what did make him Man. | |
| |
| Never shall yearnings torture him, nor sins | |
| Stain him, nor ache of earthly joys and woes | 70 |
| Invade his safe eternal peace; nor deaths | |
| And lives recur. He goes | |
| Unto NIRVÂNA. He is one with Life, | |
| Yet lives not. He is blest, ceasing to be. | |
| OM, MANI PADME, OM! the Dewdrop slips | 75 |
| Into the shining sea!… | |
| |
| AH! BLESSED LORD! OH, HIGH DELIVERER! | |
| FORGIVE THIS FEEBLE SCRIPT, WHICH DOTH THEE WRONG, | |
| MEASURING WITH LITTLE WIT THY LOFTY LOVE. | |
| AH! LOVER! BROTHER! GUIDE! LAMP OF THE LAW! | 80 |
| I TAKE MY REFUGE IN THY NAME AND THEE! | |
| I TAKE MY REFUGE IN THY LAW OF GOOD! | |
| I TAKE MY REFUGE IN THY ORDER! OM! | |
| THE DEW IS ON THE LOTUS!—RISE, GREAT SUN! | |
| AND LIFT MY LEAF AND MIX ME WITH THE WAVE. | 85 |
| OM MANI PADME HUM, THE SUNRISE COMES! | |
| THE DEWDROP SLIPS INTO THE SHINING SEA! | |
