As weeds or as reeds in the torrent of things are the windshaken souls.

Spirit by spirit goes under, a foam-bell's bubble of breath,

That blows and opens in sunder and blurs not the mirror of death.

For a worm or a thorn in his path is a man's soul quenched as a flame;

For his lust of an hour or his wrath shall the worm and the man be the same.

By the spirit are things overcome; they are stark, and the spirit hath breath:

It hath speech, and their forces are dumb; it is living, and things are of death.

Space is the soul's to inherit; the night is hers as the day; Lo, saith man, this is my spirit; how shall not the worlds make way?

Space is thought, and the wonders thereof, and the spectre of

space;

Is thought not more than the thunders and lightnings? Shall thought give place?

Is the body not more than the vesture? The life not more than the meat?

The will than the word or the gesture, the heart than the hands or the feet?

Is the tongue not more than the speech is? the head not more than the crown?

And if higher than is heaven be the reach of the soul, shall not heaven bow down?

Time, father of life, and more great than the life it begat and began,

Earth's keeper and heaven's and their fate, lives, thinks, and hath substance in man.

The seal of his knowledge is sure, the truth and his spirit are

wed;

Men perish, but man shall endure; lives die, but the life is not dead.

Thou art smitten, thou God, thou art smitten; thy death is upon Thee, O Lord.

And the love-song of earth as thou diest resounds through the wind of her wings

Glory to Man in the highest! for Man is the master of things.

From GITANJALI

RABINDRANATH TAGORE

ΙΟ

Here is thy footstool and there rest thy feet where live the poorest, and lowliest, and best.

When I try to bow to thee, my obeisance cannot reach down to the depth where thy feet rest among the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.

Pride can never approach to where thou walkest in the clothes of the humble among the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.

My heart can never find its way to where thou keepest company with the companionless among the poorest, the lowliest, and the lost.

II

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?

Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee! He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path-maker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put off thy holy mantle even like him and come down on the dusty soil!

Deliverance?

Where is this deliverance to be found? Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all forever.

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense; What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained? Meet him and stand by him in toil and in the sweat of thy brow.

From IN MEMORIAM

ALFRED TENNYSON

CXXIV

That which we dare invoke to bless;
Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt;
He, They, One, All; within, without;
The Power in darkness Whom we guess.

I found Him not in world or sun,

Or eagle's wings, or insect's eye;
Nor through the questions men may try,
The petty cobwebs we have spun.

If e'er when faith had fallen asleep,
I heard a voice 'Believe no more'
And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the godless deep;
A warmth within the breast would melt
And freezing reason's colder part,
And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answered 'I have felt.'

I SEEK THEE IN THE HEART ALONE

HERBERT TRENCH

Fountain of Fire whom all divide
We haste asunder like the spray,
But waneless doth thy flame abide
Whom every torch can take away!

I seek Thee in the heart alone,

I shall not find in hill or plain;

Our rushing star must keep its moan,
Our nightly soul its homeward pain.

Song beyond thought, Light beyond power,
Even the consumings of this breast
Advance the clearness of that hour
When all shall poise, and be at rest.

It cracks at last-the glowing sheath
The illusion-Personality-
Absorbed and interwoven with death
The myriads are dissolved in Thee.

INTROVERSION

EVELYN UNDERHILL (Mrs. Stuart Moore)

What do you seek within, O soul, my brother? What do you seek within?

I seek a life that shall never die,

Some haven to win

From mortality.

What do you find within, O soul, my brother?
What do you find within?

I find great quiet where no noises come.
Without, the world's din;

Silence in my home.

Whom do you find within, O soul, my brother?

Whom do you find within?

I find a friend that in secret came:

His scarred hands within

He shields a faint flame.

What would you do within, O soul, my brother?

What would you do within?

Bar door and window that none may see:
That alone we may be

(Alone! face to face,
In that flame-lit place!)
When first we begin
To speak one with another.

SUPERSENSUAL

EVELYN UNDERHILL

When first the busy, clumsy tongue is stilled, Save that some childish, stammering words of love The coming birth of man's true language prove: When, one and all,

The wistful, seeking senses are fulfilled
With strange, austere delight:

When eye and ear

Are inward turned to meet the flooding light,
The cadence of thy coming quick to hear:

When on thy mystic flight,

Thou Swift yet Changeless, herald breezes bring
To scent the heart's swept cell

With incense from the thurible of spring,
The fragrance which the lily seeks in vain:
When touch no more may tell

The verities of contact unexpressed,

And, deeply pressed,

To that surrender which is holiest pain,

We taste thy very rest

Ah, then we find

Folded about by kindly-nurturing night,

Instinct with silence sweetly musical,

The rapt communion of the mind with Mind.
Then may the senses fall

Vanquished indeed, nor dread

That this their dear defeat be counted sin:

For every door of flesh shall lift its head,

Because the King of Life is entered in.