University of Virginia Library

Trimurti, Trimurti,
Mock not the name;
Think and know
Before thou blame!

Brother, believe me, I respect thy creed,
And in mine inmost shrine of reverence bow
Before the men of strong firm-jointed thought
Who framed, and with their hearts' warm life-blood signed
That paper—thy confession; but to fling
Damnation round against all other creeds,
And plant myself, draped in most fine conceit,
And laced in Orthodoxy all compact,
A model for all forms of thought that be,
Is not my fashion, and should not be yours.
Thy sun-tanned brother in the glowing East,
Where sacred Ganga rolls his ample flood,
Bends not the knee to senseless blocks and beasts
But to a Spirit: and his huge gilded idols
Are but the clumsier spelling of a name
Which no man spells completely: he believes
In his own way, what you believe in yours.
Him, too, the power of Universal God
Hath touched: he, too, discerns the Soul that stirs
The heaving clod: the mystery of life
He probes: and in the battling din of things
That frets the feeble ear, he seeks and finds
A harmony that tunes the dissonant strife
To sweetest music. If in the sober West
High thought, and awful power of Hebrew faith
Hath taught thee much, and seemed to teach thee more,
Love more thy brother from thy larger breast.

Trimurti, Trimurti,
Despise not the name;
Think and know
Before thou blame!

Look upon the face of Nature
In the flush of June;
Brahma is the great Creator,
Life is Brahma's boon.
Dost thou hear the zephyr blowing?
That is Brahma's breath,
Vital breath, live virtue showing
'Neath the ribs of death.
Dost thou see the fountain flowing?
That is Bramah's blood,
Lucid blood—the same is glowing
In the purpling bud.
Brahma's Eyes look forth divining
From the welkin's brow,
Full bright eyes—the same are shining
In the sacred cow.
Air, and Fire, and running River,
And the procreant clod,
Are but faces changing ever
Of one changeless God.
When thy wingèd thought ascendeth
Where high thoughts are free,
This is Brahma when he lendeth
Half the God to thee.
Brahma is the great Creator,
Life a mystic drama;
Heaven, and Earth, and living Nature
Are but masks of Brahma.

Trimurti, Trimurti,
Mock not the name;
Think and know
Before thou blame!

Awful Siva dost thou know?
Awful Siva I will show.
Siva, Rudra, Mahadeva,
One with many a shifting name,
Bhima, Ugra, Pasapati,
Never like, but still the same!
Earth is dumb with awe and wonder,
When it sees dark Siva come;
Nations pale to hear the thunder
Of his fateful-pealing drum.
When he rides with serpents belted,
Pearled with skulls about his neck,
Rocks beneath his tread are melted,
Mighty empires fall in wreck;
In the flood and in the flame
Terrible is Siva's name.
Dost thou see yon tiny boat
Cradled in the shimmering ocean?
Summer clouds that lightly float
Sail not with a gentler motion.
Canst thou hear the merry notes
From the jocund sailors pealing,
Careless joy from clamorous throats,
Floods of free ebullient feeling?
Suddenly there comes a blast;
With short fits of gusty terror
Quakes the air: night travels fast;
Darkly glooms the briny horror.
Where is now that gamesome boat?
Where the crew with wild joy swelling?
Seek them in dark ocean's throat,
In the mute sea-monster's dwelling.
Mighty Siva hath prevailed:
On the tempest's wings of madness
Riding, harsh and iron-mailed,
He hath crushed all joy and gladness.
Many mothers weep to-day,
Many brides will weep to-morrow,—
Siva comes, and leaves his way
Washed with blood, and paved with sorrow;
Siva comes: his power adore;
Wrathful treads the great Destroyer,
Death, his servant, walks before,
Teeming Life is his employer.
Famine, Fever, Flood, and Flame,
Murder and the Grave,
Rule by mighty Siva's name;
None from him can save.
Worship Siva: when he glares
With his three red eyes of Ruin,
When his smoking breath prepares
Three-pronged bolts for thy undoing.
Bend the knee beneath his dart,
Huts may stand, while towers shall crumble;
Crushing low the proud in heart,
Siva oft hath spared the humble.

Trimurti, Trimurti,
Mock not the name;
Search and know
Before thou blame!

All-pervading, all-informing,
Heart of heat within the cold,
Widely-working, richly-warming,
Vishnu loves to melt and mould.
Though Siva hath passed in the stormy blast,
And, like a crimson streamer,
Hath swept the sky, Vishnu is nigh;
Earth looks for her Redeemer.
Six months and a day grim Winter's sway
May last, but not for ever;
The grass shall grow, and the bud shall blow,
When Vishnu unbinds the river.
Long is the sleep that nations sleep;
Bleak centuries they lie
Confounded, or convulsive creep
In wriggling agony.
But still the hidden life they keep;
Regeneration lurks;
A heaving God shall stir the clod
Where mighty Vishnu works.
Deserts, when they feel his tread,
Wave with leafy surges,
Yama from their bony bed
His refleshed ghosts disgorges.
Wouldst thou grasp him? that is hard,
With three giant paces
Who hath strode the blue girth barred
To worms in mortal cases.
Wouldst thou know him? that is hard;
He holds no certain shape;
Soldier, prophet, priest, or bard,
Fish, or boar, or ape,
All and each are Vishnu's faces;
But the wise behind
Each rude mask discern the traces
Of the Saviour-Mind.
They shall know him who believe
That through his incarnation,
Faithful hearts and hands achieve
The world's regeneration.
They shall leave the half-burnt stake,
And the half-ploughed furrow,
And their portion they shall make
With Vishnu's joy and sorrow.
They with him shall toil and travel,
For him fight and bleed:
For Vishnu, though Hell's legions cavil,
In the end shall speed.
With an iron-pointed will,
A steady-glowing fervour,
Vanquished, they are victors still
Through Vishnu the Preserver.
Small as a seed that's cast on Earth
Vishnu's power is planted,
Wide as ocean's swelling girth
Vishnu's growth is vaunted.
Like a beggar first he shows,
And great and small ignore him;
Anon in regal pomp he goes,
And monarchs bend before him.
Where he comes each palsied heart
Beats with quick emotion,
Peoples into being start,
And Earth upheaves like Ocean.
Rags of false fair Pride are torn,
Truth's bright blazon flutters,
Tears are buried, hopes are born,
And power prophetic utters
The coming glory. Heaven and Earth
Pulse with impatient fervour,
And reborn Nature hymns her mirth
To Vishnu the Preserver!

There's my apology for the poor Hindoos:
Convert them, if you can, but do not damn;
Curse not the beggar when you dole your doit;
Preach, like St. Paul, in gentlemanly wise,
And do not swear that brindled hides are black
To make yourself look whiter. I believe
There is much high and holy wisdom hid
In what you damn wholesale; but, if you find
No sheep outside the Presbyterian fold
(All else being goats), and what I take for gold
You deem base brass, till stamped in thine own mint,
I would not strive with thee: God made thee so;
My thoughts would not lodge sweetly in thy skin.
Think in thy groove; 'tis safer footing so
For thee, and all with thee who love to live
Soft-fleshed within the fond familiar shell
Of customed old tradition; but refrain
From blaming me to my own nature true,
Who love the broad free range and shifting scene,
And still must strive beyond myself to gain
Some point of vantage, nearer as I deem
To God, and to the wide far-reaching scope
Of his rich varied plan. A little bird
Cage-born and bred may love to dwell secure
Within the wires, and wisely shrink from swell
Of wavy winds, and vans of venture stirred
In unfamiliar fields: fear saves the weak;
But the storm-nurtured freedman of the air
Will scorn to breathe where chains have lamed his wing.
Farewell! your creed may nevermore be mine;
I hold one God, but many forms divine;
Your's best—so be it !—but I may not bind
My heart to worship only in one kind;
Nor, where flowers prink the mead with diverse hue
Let one bright bloom usurp my wondering view;
And they are wise who love with like regard
Both rose and lily, where to choose is hard.
Leave me, dear friend, the luxury of my error,
To think that creeds are but a broken mirror,
With thousand Suns for one that lights the skies,
And one truth imaged in a thousand lies!