University of Virginia Library

You and I

I know not, care not, how you came to be;
Nor why you toil; nor to what end you move.
It is enough that in the heart of me
You are a lamp of light, a flame of love.
It is enough for me that for my sake
Your springs of life are ceaselessly renewed.
It is enough that in each breath I take
I am sustained by your infinitude.
It is enough that because you are you
I am whate'er I am; that you, the Whole,
For ever and for ever streaming through
The channel of my being, are my soul.
You are the riddle which will ne'er be guessed.
You are the answer hidden in my breast.

The Dewdrop and the Sea

I am the dewdrop on the blade of grass,
One of a billion billion. Be it so.
You are in each; and as they change and pass,
Your life-pulse beats with rhythmic ebb and flow.
For you are in the cloud, the mist, the rain,
The bubbling spring, the freshet foaming free,
The sea-like river winding through the plain,
The river widening out into the sea.
You draw them back. They give you what you gave.
They feed anew the fountains of your life,—
The coiling current, the world-circling wave,
The ocean deeps, unvexed by storm or strife,—
Your inmost self. Yet in each separate soul
You live your life not less than in the Whole.

All to All

Many are your disguises. 'Tis in vain
We seek to bind you in our forms of thought.
You change from sea to cloud, from cloud to rain.
Your One is manifold. Your All is nought.
Smiling assent, you cancel Yes with No.
Matching our moods, you baffle our pursuit.
Pageant or panorama. Ceaseless flow
Of changeful Life, or changeless Absolute.
For sense-bound reason you are dumb and blind,
Lifeless and soulless, dead though infinite:
And you are Truth for the adventurous mind:
And Beauty for the spirit's inward sight.
For wondering awe you are the Stars above:
And for the heart that loves you, you are Love.

All in All

Did God create you? Nay, but you are God.
You are yourself your cause, your end, your way:
You are the will, the word, the measuring-rod,
The lord of night, the fountain-head of day.
Omnipotent, eternal, self-evolved,
Self-centred, self-sufficing, self-renewed:—
In your own being is your problem solved;
Through your own travail is your aim pursued.
Why do we look beyond you? Time and space,
Nature and supernature, source and goal,
Primal perfection and the fall from grace,—
Are they not all encircled by your soul?
Is not your good the standard of all worth?
Is not your life an everlasting birth?

Growth through Love

If ever you began, you were the heir
And offspring of some dying Universe,
Which in its death bequeathed you to the care
Of Love, your guardian and your foster-nurse.
And you were love-awakened, love-caressed,
Love-cradled, love-enfolded, love-inspired;
Drinking in life you hung upon Love's breast,
Till with the love of love your heart was fired.
And you grew great through loving—and still grow,
Transcending still your own infinity:—
For love's a river in its outward flow;
But in its intake 'tis a shoreless sea.
And so the more you love, the more you give,
The fuller, deeper, is the life you live.

A Nightmare

Sometimes we dream of you as throned on high—
A monarch crowned with majesty and might,—
Holding your court in halls above the sky,
Irradiating glory, power and might:—
A stern vindictive judge, whose lightest breath
Makes or unmakes; who saves a chosen few,
And with a frown dooms all but those to death,
The second death, the sinner's dreadful due.
And in our dream we see before your throne
Ourselves, a suppliant throng, on bended knee,
Praying for grace, each for himself alone.—
Or hymning praises everlastingly.
Life of all lives, forgive us who blaspheme
Your all-embracing love with such a dream.

Repayment

You made me what I am. My heart grew warm,
Responsive to your love's life-kindling breath.
You bade my soul awake. You gave it form.
You won me from the chaos which is death.
How can I best requite your love? What sign,
What word, what deed could say how I am blest?
Could I enrich your life by losing mine?
Or make you happier by my heart's unrest?
Do what you will. Set me whatever task
May test my manhood. Cleanse my soul with fire.
To answer love with love is all I ask;—
Yet one thing only does your love desire,—
That I should throw self's lock-gates open wide,
And thwart no more your life's inrushing tide.

All for Each

The more we ask, the more your bounty gives.
We need not struggle with unseemly strife
To share your favours. The least thing that lives
Has at its call the ocean of your life.
‘Ask and ye shall receive’—so said of old
Your chosen prophet. Through the vanished years,
From age to age, his trumpet-call has rolled;
Yet still it falls on deaf or heedless ears.
For still our lives in deep-sunk channels move.
Tradition, habit, custom wall us in.
We know not of your circling sea of love,
Or count our hearts' responsive love a sin.
Yet have I dreamed that in some future age
Man will awake and claim his heritage.

The Wells of Life

To waken consciousness in depths unknown:
To lift into the sunshine from the cool,
Damp, silent cisterns, arched with dripping stone,
Life's hidden waters, drawn from pool to pool:—
To lift them sunward in outwelling waves;
And in their stead summon from far away
Mysterious waters in mysterious caves,
Waiting their turn to see the light of day:—
For this we live. And could our hearts explore
Those innermost recesses, dark and deep,
And reach the fountain whence they draw their store
That never fails,—we should invade your sleep:
For every drop that in that darkness hides
Comes from the depths beneath your swaying tides.

Self

There is a barrier 'twixt your soul and mine.
We call it Self. It is of vampire breed.
Our life-blood is its sacramental wine.
It seeks its own with fierce, insatiate greed.
It is a quicksand, in its treacherous deeps
Engulfing all who heedless wander near.
It is a whirlpool, in whose eddying sweeps
All things that drift are caught and disappear.
It is a siren, with seductive wile
Luring the soul to shipwreck and to death.
It is a serpent, hissing words of guile,
A sting of poison in its every breath.
This is the self, to which my soul must die,
If it would live to your eternity.

Evil

Why is there evil mingled with your good?
Why is there darkness mingled with your light?
Why, when we ask in over-curious mood
These riddles, are we plunged in blackest night?
You alone know the secret of your life:
You know your plan, your purpose, and your goal.
You seem distraught with fierce, intestine strife;
Yet surely peace reigns in your inmost soul.
It is enough to know that in my heart
The feud enacts itself from day to day;
That darkness triumphs whensoe'er the part
Defies the whole and goes its separate way:—
To know that evil is to seek my own,
That goodness is to live for you alone.

The True Self

They tell us that the mighty banyan-tree,
Itself a forest, has a speck-like seed,
In which it hides its life's totality,
A spell-bound prisoner, waiting to be freed.
So do you hide your Self—the One, the All—
In this my heart, this seed which you have sown;
Waiting to wake from slumber at my call,
Waiting for me to claim you as my own.
Patient you wait. Shall I with stubborn will
Rest in myself, content with what is mine?
Or, with high purpose, labour to fulfil,
Dying to self, my fate and your design?
Nay, but who dies to self doth self renew;
For I am I only when one with you.

The Final Choice

To live for self or for the Universe,—
This is my choice, supreme for good or ill:
To live for self till self becomes a curse,
Or live in oneness with the world's one will:
To live for self, with ever-narrowing scope,
Till, one by one, into its vortex fall,
Drawn slowly downwards, love and faith and hope;—
To live for self till self becomes my all:—
This—or to die to self and live again,
Breathing an ampler life with every breath;
Transmuting toil to triumph, loss to gain;
Wresting life's secret from the deeps of death:—
This is my choice—to live for self alone,
Or, losing self, to make all life my own.

Faith

Men ask what I believe. I cannot say.
Faith is the other self of deep desire.
Faith is a flood which sweeps all forms away,—
The flaming outrush of an inward fire.
Men ask what I believe. I cannot guess.
I love you with my heart, my mind, my soul.
This is my creed. What more can I confess?
Love baffles speech, and breaks from thought's control.
Men ask if I am happy? Have I found
Safe anchorage in life's uncharted sea?
Nay, I am on a voyage. I am bound
For seas and lands unknown. I wander free.
I find life's treasure in this endless quest,
And peace of mind in infinite unrest.

Creeds

Creeds are for those whose faith is insecure,
Trembling 'twixt fear and doubt; whose love is cold;
Who need another's voice to reassure
Their faltering hearts, another's hand to hold.
Creeds are for those who think that lip-assent
Can serve the purpose of faith's ardent flame;—
For those who, self-distrustful, are content
To seek salvation in a phrase, a name.
Creeds are for those who think that words can tell
Your deepest secret; who have never guessed
That one word only holds the key, the spell,—
That they know most, know all things, who love best.
Let doubting hearts on form and symbol feed:
The love your love awakens is my creed.

The True Reward

What do I seek? What does my soul desire?
To give desire a fuller, freer scope:
To make intenser its intensest fire:
To pass beyond the horizon of its hope.
What vision lures me on? What dream sustains?
No prize of victory. No garnered fruit.
I reap my harvest in my wounds, my pains,
The stress of strife, the ardour of pursuit.
Why do I strive? That I may strive the more.
Why do I toil? Not for life's daily bread.
Why do I climb? That I may learn to soar.
Success, achievement is the doom I dread.
Have I succeeded? One reward I claim—
A task beyond my compass and my aim.

The Beatific Vision

If I were proof against self's myriad lures;
If I could break the bonds that bind me still;
If I could make my heart beat true to yours;
If I could live in oneness with your will;
If I could rise above the mists of sense,
By service disciplined, by love made whole,—
Might I not dream that, as a recompense,
You would unveil your glory to my soul?
The Beatific Vision! To behold
The Real, the Good, the Beautiful, the True!
To see, unblinded, through the Gates of Gold,
The quintessential splendour which is you!
To hold the spaces in one flash of light,
And in one heart-beat, Time's unending flight!

Highways to the Heart

When the great spaces of the midnight sky
Are bare of clouds and all the stars awake:—
When the east flushes, and the breezes sigh,
And the stars fail, and day begins to break:—
When ocean, your own image, is a world
Of sunlit azure; when on stormy days
The thunderous tumult of its waves is hurled
On walls of rock or sand of sheltered bays:—
When from their winter slumber leaf and bloom
Come forth, responsive to the call of spring:
When mid-May paints laburnum, gorse, and broom
With flame of gold: when the birds pair and sing:—
Then folded to your heart my heart finds rest,
Your purpose self-revealed, your secret guessed.

Byways to the Heart

You have your byways to the heart of man,
Secluded paths that wander waywardly,
Unmapped, untracked, obedient to no plan,—
Paths that you take, we know not how or why:—
The tremor of a voice that haunts us yet;
Familiar words that somehow move to tears;
The song of thrush, the scent of violet,
With memories fraught of half-forgotten years;
A wistful look on a belovèd face;
A wave of pity for a soul distrest:—
Moments in which we thrill to your embrace,
Yet know not by whose love our hearts are blest;
Moments in which, 'mid round of earthly cares,
We entertain your godhead unawares.

Death and Life

The air grows chill. The tide is ebbing fast.
The shadows creep along. The sands run low.
Soon will my years be numbered with the past;
Soon will my sap of life have ceased to flow.
I wait my summons. What will death unfold?
A denser darkness or an ampler light?
Will my eyes open as my heart grows cold?
And will new wonders dawn upon their sight?
Vain questions! Death unlocks one door alone:
It cannot set the self-imprisoned free;
Nor tell us what our hearts have never known.
'Tis life, not death, that holds your master-key.
The deeper knowledge which death cannot give
Life will unfold to all who learn to live.

Death and Love

I wait death's summons with untroubled heart;
For well I know that whereso'er I roam,
Your love will strengthen me to play my part,
Your life will be my haven and my home.
I know that in each world, each sphere, each plane
Your Law, your law of laws, will still hold good,—
The law by which, as often as they wane,
The firesprings of your being are renewed;
The law which is your breath, your word, your will;
The law by which the stars of midnight move;
The law through which all lesser laws fulfil
Their world-wide purposes;—the Law of Love:—
The law of self-transcendence through self-loss;
The law of life through death upon the cross.