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Oh, we can wait no longer,
We too take ship, O soul, (Here the word ‘soul’ means intellect)
Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas
Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to sail.
Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O Soul).
Carolling free, singing our song of God,
Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration
With laugh and many a kiss,
(Let others deprecate, let others weep for sin, remorse, humiliation)
O soul, thou pleasest me, I thee.
Ah, more than any priest, O soul, we too believe in God,
But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.
O soul, thou pleasest me, I thee.
Sailing these seas or on the hills, or waking in the night,
Thoughts, silent thoughts of Time and Space and Death, like waters flowing,
Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite,
Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear, leave me all over,
Bathe me, O God, in thee, mounting to thee
I and my soul to range in range of thee
O thou transcendent,
Nameless, the fibre and the breath.
Light of the lights, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them,
Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving
Thou moral, spiritual fountain-affection’s source thou reservoir,
(O pensive soul of me—O thirst unsatisfied-waitest not there?
Waitest not happy for us somewhere there the Comrade perfect?)
Thou pulse—thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,
That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,
Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space,
How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if, out of
myself,
I could not launch to those superior universes?
Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death
But that I, turning, call to thee, O soul, thou actual me,
And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.
Greater than stars or suns
Bounding, O soul, thou journeyest forth;
What love other than thine and ours could wider amplify?
What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours, O soul?
What dreams of the ideal? What plans of purity, perfection, strength?
What cheerful willingness for others’ sake to give up all?
For others’ sake to suffer all?
Reckoning ahead, O soul, when thou, the time achiev’d
The seas all cross’d, weather’d the capes, the voyage done,
Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest the aim attain’d,
As fill’d with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,
The Younger melts in fondness in his arms. |
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