Fireflies

My fancies are fireflies, — 

Specks of living light

twinkling in the dark.

The voice of wayside pansies,

that do not attract the careless glance,

murmurs in these desultory lines.

In the drowsy dark caves of the mind

dreams build their nest with fragments

dropped from day's caravan.

Spring scatters the petals of flowers

that are not for the fruits of the future,

but for the moment's whim.

Joy freed from the bond of earth's slumber

rushes into numberless leaves,

and dances in the air for a day.

My words that are slight

may lightly dance upon time's waves

when my works heavy with import have gone down.

Mind's underground moths

grow filmy wings

and take a farewell flight

in the sunset sky.

The butterfly counts not months but moments,

and has time enough.

My thoughts, like spark, ride on winged surprises,

carrying a single laughter.

The tree gazes in love at its own beautiful shadow

which yet it never can grasp.

Let my love, like sunlight, surround you

and yet give you illumined freedom.

Days are coloured bubbles

that float upon the surface of fathomless night.

My offerings are too timid to claim your remembrance,

and therefore you may remember them.

Leave out my name from the gift

if it be a burden,

but keep my song.

April, like a child,

writes hieroglyphs on dust with flowers,

wipes them away and forgets.

Memory, the priestess,

kills the present

and offers its heart to the shrine of the dead past.

From the solemn gloom of the temple

children run out to sit in the dust,

God watches them play

and forgets the priest.

My mind starts up at some flash

on the flow of its thoughts

like a brook at a sudden liquid note of its own

that is never repeated.

In the mountain, stillness surges up

to explore its own height; 

in the lake, movement stands still

to contemplate its own depth.

The departing night's one kiss

on the closed eyes of morning

glows in the star of dawn.

Maiden, thy beauty is like a fruit

which is yet to mature,

tense with an unyielding secret.

Sorrow that has lost its memory

is like the dumb dark hours

that have no bird songs

but only the cricket's chirp.

Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand

with a grip that kills it.

Wishing to hearten a timid lamp

great night lights all her stars.

Though he holds in his arms the earth-bride,

the sky is ever immensely away.

God seeks comrades and claims love,

the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.

The soil in return for her service

keeps the tree tied to her,

the sky asks nothing and leaves it free.

Jewel-like immortal

does not boast of its length of years

but of the scintillating point of its moment.

The child ever dwells in the mystery of ageless time,

unobscured by the dust of history.

Alight laughter in the steps of creation

carries it swiftly across time.

One who was distant came near to me in the morning,

and still nearer when taken away by night.

White and pink oleanders meet

and make merry in different dialects.

When peace is active sweeping its dirt, it is storm.

The lake lies low by the hill,

a tearful entreaty of love

at the foot of the inflexible.

There smiles the Divine Child

among his playthings of unmeaning clouds

and ephemeral lights and shadows.

The breeze whispers to the lotus,

'What is thy secret? '

'It is myself,' says the lotus,

'Steal it and I disappear! '

The freedom of the storm and the bondage of the stem

join hands in the dance of swaying branches.

The jasmine's lisping of love to the sun is her flowers.

The tyrant claims freedom to kill freedom

and yet to keep it for himself.

Gods, tired of their paradise, envy man.

Clouds are hills in vapour,

hills are clouds in stone, —

a phantasy in time's dream.

While God waits for His temple to be built of love,

men bring stones.

I touch God in my song

as the hill touches the far-away sea

with its waterfall.

Light finds her treasure of colours

through the antagonism of clouds.

My heart to-day smiles at its past night of tears

like a wet tree glistening in the sun 

after the rain is over.

I have thanked the trees that have made my life fruitful,

but have failed to remember the grass

that has ever kept it green.

The one without second is emptiness,

the other one makes it true.

Life's errors cry for the merciful beauty

that can modulate their isolation

into a harmony with the whole.

They expect thanks for the banished nest

because their cage is shapely and secure.

In love I pay my endless debt to thee

for what thou art.

The pond sends up its lyrics from its dark in lilies,

and the sun says, they are good.

Your calumny against the great is impious,

it hurts yourself; 

against the small it is mean,

for it hurts the victim.

The first flower that blossomed on this earth

was an invitation to the unborn song.

Dawn—the many-coloured flower—fades,

and then the simple light-fruit,

the sun appears.

The muscle that has a doubt if its wisdom

throttles the voice that would cry.

The wind tries to take the flame by storm 

only to blow it out.

Life's play is swift,

Life's playthings fall behind one by one

and are forgotten.

My flower, seek not thy paradise

in a fool's buttonhole.

Thou hast risen late, my crescent moon,

but my night bird is still awake to greet thee.

Darkness is the veiled bride

silently waiting for the errant light

to return to her bosom.

Trees are the earth's endless effort to

speak to the listening heaven.

The burden of self is lightened

when I laugh at myself.

The weak can be terrible 

because they try furiously to appear strong.

The wind of heaven blows,

The anchor desperately clutches the mud,

and my boat is beating its breast against the chain.

The spirit of death is one,

the spirit of life is many,

When God is dead religion becomes one.

The blue of the sky longs for the earth's green,

the wind between them sighs, 'Alas.'

Day's pain muffled by its own glare,

burns among stars in the night.

The stars crowd round the virgin night

in silent awe at her loneliness

that can never be touched.

The cloud gives all its gold

to the departing sun

and greets the rising moon

with only a pale smile.

He who does good comes to the temple gate,

he who loves reaches the shrine.

Flower, have pity for the worm,

it is not a bee,

its love is a blunder and a burden.

With the ruins of terror's triumph

children build their doll's house.

The lamp waits through the long day of neglect

for the flame's kiss in the night.

Feathers in the dust lying lazily content

have forgotten their sky.

The flowers which is single

need not envy the thorns

that are numerous.

The world suffers most from the disinterested tyranny

of its well-wisher.

We gain freedom when we have paid the full price

for our right to live.

Your careless gifts of a moment,

like the meteors of an autumn night,

catch fire in the depth of my being.

The faith waiting in the heart of a seed

promises a miracle of life

which it cannot prove at once.

Spring hesitates at winter's door,

but the mango blossom rashly runs out to him

before her time and meets her doom.

The world is the ever-changing foam

that floats on the surface of a sea of silence.

The two separated shores mingle their voices

in a song of unfathomed tears.

As a river in the sea,

work finds its fulfilment

in the depth of leisure.

I lingered on my way till thy cherry tree lost its blossom,

but the azalea brings to me, my love, thy forgiveness.

Thy shy little pomegranate bud,

blushing to-day behind her veil,

will burst into a passionate flower

to-morrow when I am away.

The clumsiness of power spoils the key,

and uses the pickaxe.

Birth is from the mystery of night

into the greater mystery of day.

These paper boats of mine are meant to dance

on the ripples of hours,

and not to reach any destination.

Migratory songs wing from my heart

and seek their nests in your voice of love.

The sea of danger, doubt and denial

around man's little island of certainty

challenges him to dare the unknown.

Love punishes when it forgives,

and injured beauty by its awful silence.

You live alone and unrecompensed

because they are afraid of your great worth.

The same sun is newly born in new lands

in a ring of endless dawns.

God is world is ever renewed by death,

a Titan's ever crushed by its own existence.

The glow-worm while exploring the dust

never knows that stars are in the sky.

The tree is of to-day, the flower is old,

it brings with it the message

of the immemorial seed.

Each rose that comes brings me greetings

from the Rose of an eternal spring.

God honours me when I work,

He loves me when I sing.

My love of to-day finds no home

in the nest deserted by yesterday's love.

The fire of pain traces for my soul

a luminous path across her sorrow.

The grass survives the hill

through its resurrections from countless deaths.

Thou hast vanished from my reach

leaving an impalpable touch in the blue of the sky,

an invisible image in the wind moving

among the shadows.

In pity for the desolate branch

spring leaves to it a kiss that fluttered in a lonely leaf.

The shy shadow in the garden

loves the sun in silence,

Flowers guess the secret, and smile,

while the leaves whisper.

I leave no trace of wings in the air,

but I am glad I have had my flight.

The fireflies, twinkling among leaves,

make the stars wonder.

The mountain remains unmoved

at its seeming defeat by the mist.

While the rose said to the sun,

'I shall ever remember thee,'

her petals fell to the dust.

Hills are the earth's gesture of despair

for the unreachable.

Though the thorn in thy flower pricked me,

O Beauty,

I am grateful.

The world knows that the few

are more than the many.

Let not my love be a burden on you, my friend,

know that it pays itself.

Dawn plays her lute before the gate of darkness,

and is content to vanish when the sun comes out.

Beauty is truth's smile

when she beholds her own face

in a perfect mirror.

The dew-drop knows the sun

only within its own tiny orb.

Forlorn thoughts from the forsaken lives of all ages,

swarming in the air, hum round my heart

and seek my voice.

The desert is imprisoned in the wall

of its unbounded barrenness.

In the thrill of little leaves

I see the air's invisible dance,

and in their glimmering

the secret heart-beats of the sky.

You are like a flowering tree,

amazed when I praise you for your gifts.

The earth's sacrificial fire

flames up in her trees,

scattering sparks in flowers.

Forests, the clouds of earth,

hold up to the sky their silence,

and clouds from above come down

in resonant showers.

The world speaks to me in pictures,

my soul answers in music.

The sky tells its beads all night

on the countless stars

in memory of the sun.

The darkness of night, like pain, is dumb,

the darkness of dawn, like peace, is silent.

Pride engraves his frowns in stones,

love offers her surrender in flowers.

The obsequious brush curtails truth

in deference to the canvas which is narrow.

The hill in its longing for the far-away sky

wishes to be like the cloud

with its endless urge of seeking.

To justify their own spilling of ink

they spell the day as night.

Profit smiles on goodness

when the good is profitable.

In its swelling pride

the bubble doubts the truth of the sea,

and laughs and bursts into emptiness.

Love is an endless mystery,

for it has nothing else to explain it.

My clouds, sorrowing in the dark,

forget that they themselves

have hidden the sun.

Man discovers his own wealth

when God comes to ask gifts of him.

You leave your memory as a flame

to my lonely lamp of separation.

I came to offer thee a flower,

but thou must have all my garden,—

It is thine.

The picture—a memory of light

treasured by the shadow.

It is easy to make faces at the sun,

He is exposed by his own light in all

directions.

History slowly smothers its truth,

but hastily struggles to revive it

in the terrible penance of pain.

My work is rewarded in daily wages,

I wait for my final value in love.

Beauty knows to say, 'Enough,'

barbarism clamours for still more.

God loves to see in me, not his servant,

but himself who serves all.

The darkness of night is in harmony with day,

the morning of mist is discordant.

In the bounteous time of roses love is wine,—

it is food in the famished hour

when their petals are shed.

An unknown flower in a strange land

speaks to the poet:

'Are we not of the same soil, my lover? '

I am able to love my God

because He gives me freedom to deny Him.

My untuned strings beg for music

in their anguished cry of shame.

The worm thinks it strange and foolish

that man does not eat his books.

The clouded sky to-day bears the visior

of the shadow of a divine sadness

on the forehead of brooding eternity.

The shade of my tree is for passers-by,

its fruit for the one for whom I wait.

Flushed with the glow of sunset

earth seems like a ripe fruit

ready to be harvested by night.

Light accepts darkness for his spouse

for the sake of creation.

The reed waits for his master's breath,

the Master goes seeking for his reed.

To the blind pen the hand that writes is unreal,

its writing unmeaning.

The sea smites his own barren breast

because he has no flowers to offer to the moon.

The greed for fruit misses the flower.

God in His temple of stars

waits for man to bring him his lamp.

The fire restrained in the tree fashions flowers.

Released from bonds, the shameless flame

dies in barren ashes.

The sky sets no snare to capture the moon,

it is her own freedom which binds her.

The light that fills the sky

seeks its limit in a dew-drop on the grass.

Wealth is the burden of bigness,

Welfare the fulness of being.

The razor-blade is proud of its keenness

when it sneers at the sun.

The butterfly has leisure to love the lotus,

not the bee busily storing honey.

Child, thou bringest to my heart

the babble of the wind and the water,

the flower's speechless secrets, the clouds' dreams,

the mute gaze of wonder of the morning sky.

The rainbow among the clouds may be great

but the little butterfly among the bushes is greater.

The mist weaves her net round the morning,

captivates him, and makes him blind.

The Morning Star whispers to Dawn,

'Tell me that you are only for me.'

'Yes,' she answers,

'And also only for that nameless flower.'

The sky remains infinitely vacant

for earth there to build its heaven with dreams.

Perhaps the crescent moon smiles in doubt

at being told that it is a fragment

awaiting perfection.

Let the evening forgive the mistakes of the day

and thus win peace for herself.

Beauty smiles in the confinement of the bud,

in the heart of a sweet incompleteness.

Your flitting love lightly brushed with its wings

my sun-flower

and never asked if it was ready to surrender its honey.

Leaves are silences

around flowers which are their words.

The tree bears its thousand years

as one large majestic moment.

My offerings are not for the temple at the end of the road,

but for the wayside shrines

that surprise me at every bend.

Hour smile, my love, like the smell of a strange flower,

is simple and inexplicable.

Death laughs when the merit of the dead is exaggerated

for it swells his store with more than he can claim.

The sigh of the shore follows in vain

the breeze that hastens the ship across the sea.

Truth loves its limits,

for there it meets the beautiful.

Between the shores of Me and Thee

there is the loud ocean, my own surging self,

which I long to cross.

The right to possess boasts foolishly

of its right to enjoy.

The rose is a great deal more

than a blushing apology for the thorn.

Day offers to the silence of stars

his golden lute to be tuned

for the endless life.

The wise know how to teach,

the fool how to smite.

The centre is still and silent in the heart

of an eternal dance of circles.

The judge thinks that he is just when he compares

The oil of another's lamp

with the light of his own.

The captive flower in the King's wreath

smiles bitterly when the meadow-flower envies her.

Its store of snow is the hill's own burden,

its outpouring of streams is borne by all the world.

Listen to the prayer of the forest

for its freedom in flowers.

Let your love see me

even through the barrier of nearness.

The spirit of work in creation is there

to carry and help the spirit of play.

To carry the burden of the instrument,

count the cost of its material,

and never to know that it is for music,

is the tragedy of deaf life.

Faith is the bird that feels the light

and sings when the dawn is still dark.

I bring to thee, night, my day's empty cup,

to be cleansed with thy cool darkness

for a new morning's festival.

The mountain fir, in its rustling,

modulates the memory of its fights with the storm

into a hymn of peace.

God honoured me with his fight

when I was rebellious,

He ignored me when I was languid.

The sectarian thinks

that he has the sea

ladled into his private pond.

In the shady depth of life

are the lonely nests of memories

that shrink from words.

Let my love find its strength

in the service of day,

its peace in the union of night.

Life sends up in blades of grass

its silent hymn of praise

to the unnamed Light.

The stars of night are to me

the memorials of my day's faded flowers.

Open thy door to that which must go,

for the loss becomes unseemly when obstructed.

True end is not in the reaching of the limit,

but in a completion which is limitless.

The shore whispers to the sea:

'Write to me what thy waves struggle to say.'

The sea writes in foam again and again

and wipes off the lines in a boisterous despair.

Let the touch of thy finger thrill my life's strings

and make the music thine and mine.

The inner world rounded in my life like a fruit,

matured in joy and sorrow,

will drop into the darkness of the original soil

for some further course of creation.

Form is in Matter, rhythm in Force,

meaning in the Person.

There are seekers of wisdom and seekers of wealth,

I seek thy company so that I may sing.

As the tree its leaves, I shed my words on the earth,

let my thoughts unuttered flower in thy silence.

My faith in truth, my vision of the perfect,

help thee, Master, in thy creation.

All the delights that I have felt

in life's fruits and flowers

let me offer to thee at the end of the feast,

in a perfect union of love.

Some have thought deeply and explored the

meaning of thy truth,

and they are great; 

I have listened to catch the music of thy play,

and I am glad.

The tree is a winged spirit

released from the bondage of seed,

pursuing its adventure of life

across the unknown.

The lotus offers its beauty to the heaven,

the grass its service to the earth.

The sun's kiss mellows into abandonment

the miserliness of the green fruit clinging to its stem.

The flame met the earthen lamp in me,

and what a great marvel of light! 

Mistakes live in the neighbourhood of truth

and therefore delude us.

The cloud laughed at the rainbow

saying that it was an upstart

gaudy in its emptiness.

The rainbow calmly answered,

'I am as inevitably real as the sun himself.'

Let me not grope in vain in the dark

but keep my mind still in the faith

that the day will break

and truth will appear

in its simplicity.

Through the silent night

I hear the returning vagrant hopes of the morning

knock at my heart.

My new love comes

bringing to me the eternal wealth of the old.

The earth gazes at the moon and wonders

that she should have all her music in her smile.

Day with its glare of curiosity

puts the stars to flight.

My mind has its true union with thee, O sky,

at the window which is mine own,

and not in the open

where thou hast thy sole kingdom.

Man claims God's flowers as his own

when he weaves them in a garland.

The buried city, laid bare to the sun of a new age,

is ashamed that is has lost all its song.

Like my heart's pain that has long missed its meaning,

the sun's rays robed in dark

hide themselves under the ground.

Like my heart's pain at love's sudden touch,

they change their veil at the spring's call

and come out in the carnival of colours,

in flowers and leaves.

My life's empty flute

waits for its final music

like the primal darkness

before the stars came out.

Emancipation from the bondage of the soil

is no freedom for the tree.

The tapestry of life's story is woven

with the threads of life's ties

ever joining and breaking.

Those thoughts of mine that are never captured by words

perch upon my song and dance.

My soul to-night loses itself

in the silent heart of a tree

standing alone among the whispers of immensity.

Pearl shells cast up by the sea

on death's barren beach,—

a magnificent wastefulness of creative life.

The sunlight opens for me the word's gate,

love's light its treasure.

My life like the reed with its stops,

has its play of colours

through the gaps in its hopes and gains.

Let not my thanks to thee

rob my silence of its fuller homage.

Life's aspirations come

in the guise of children.

The faded flower sighs

that the spring has vanished forever.

In my life's garden

my wealth has been of the shadows and lights

that are never gathered and stored.

The fruit that I Have gained forever

is that which thou hast accepted.

The jasmine knows the sun to be her brother

in the heaven.

Light is young, the ancient light; 

shadows are of the moment, they are born old.

I feel that the ferry of my songs at the day's end

will bring me across to the other shore

from where I shall see.

The butterfly flitting from flower to flower

ever remains mine,

I lose the one that is netted by me.

Your voice, free bird, reaches my sleeping nest,

and my drowsy wings dream

of a voyage to the light

above the clouds.

I miss the meaning of my own part

in the play of life

because I know not of the parts

that others play.

The flower sheds all its petals

and finds the fruit.

I leave my songs behind me 

to the bloom of the ever-returning honeysuckles

and the joy of the wind from the south.

Dead leaves when they lose themselves in soil

take part in the life of the forest.

The mind ever seeks its words

from its sounds and silence

as the sky from its darkness and light.

The unseen dark plays on his flute

and the rhythm of light

eddies into stars and suns,

into thoughts and dreams.

My songs are to sing

that I have loved Thy singing.

When the voice of the Silent touches my words

I know him and therefore I know myself.

My last salutations are to them

who knew me imperfect and loved me.

Love's gift cannot be given,

it waits to be accepted.

When death comes and whispers to me,

'Thy days are ended,'

let me say to him, 'I have lived in love

and not in mere time.'

He will ask, 'Will thy songs remain? '

I shall say, 'I know not, but this I know

that often when I sang I found my eternity.'

'Let me light my lamp,'

say the star,

'and never debate

if it will help to remove the darkness.'

Before the end of my journey

may I reach within myself

the one which is the all,

leaving the outer shell

to float away with the drifting multitude

upon the current of chance and change.