EGO
A Beauty that ever eludes these fleshly eyes
And fingers and lips ...
Ere I can catch one gleam of the starry skies
The mystery slips,
Leaving an empty, desolate, mocking moan
In the little heart that greedily sought to hold
Vast beauty within its shadowy grasp and own
Elusive, starry gold!
Who are you, feeble, shadow-robed elf,
Striving again and again in vain to capture
Wealth of the deep, the shining, ineffable rapture
Which is the Self beyond self?
Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.
FIRE
Kindle your glimmering lamp in the infinite space, O Love!
Let the dark shadows dance in the burning depths of mine eyes.
I am athirst for one glimpse of your beautiful face, O Love!
Veiled in the mystical silence of stars and the purple of skies.
Thrill me with radiant rapture, O Love! of your ravishing flute,
Folding my silence in song, and my sorrow in silver eclipse,
Shaping my heart into flower, and the flower of my heart into fruit
Meet for your orchards of light, and touch of your luminous lips.
Cast in the shadowy deeps of my being, your love, like a spark,
Fan it to magical flame, till my dead heart burst into fire,
Swing like a censer, my dream of devotion, O Love! through the dark,
Turn into tumults of incense my richly-pulsating desire!
Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.