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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse  »  378. In Salutation to the Eternal Peace

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949)

378. In Salutation to the Eternal Peace

MEN say the world is full of fear and hate,

And all life’s ripening harvest-fields await

The restless sickle of relentless fate.

But I, sweet Soul, rejoice that I was born,

When from the climbing terraces of corn

I watch the golden orioles of Thy morn.

What care I for the world’s desire and pride,

Who know the silver wings that gleam and glide,

The homing pigeons of Thine eventide?

What care I for the world’s loud weariness,

Who dream in twilight granaries Thou dost bless

With delicate sheaves of mellow silences?

Say, shall I heed dull presages of doom,

Or dread the rumoured loneliness and gloom,

The mute and mythic terror of the tomb?

For my glad heart is drunk and drenched with Thee,

O inmost wine of living ecstasy!

O intimate essence of eternity!