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Title: Sandhya

Subtitle: Songs of Twilight

Author: Dhan Gopal Mukerji

Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22848]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ***

E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Sankar Viswanathan,

and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

(http://www.pgdp.net)

SANDHYA

SONGS OF TWILIGHT

BY

DHAN GOPAL MUKERJI

AUTHOR OF "LAYLA-MAJNU"

AND "RAJANI"

NINETEEN SEVENTEEN

PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY

SAN FRANCISCO

Copyright, 1917

By PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY

SAN FRANCISCO

TO

MRS. HANCOCK BANNING

MRS. WILLIAM CLARK, JR.

FOREWORD

Like "Rajani" [perhaps more than], "Sandhya" is a slender rill that has drawn its music from my Bengali which has told upon its English structure. This and many other faults of these poems are due to their unyielding adherence to spontaneity.

"Sandhya" came then, as "Rajani" in its own way through the bed of my Bengali reflecting its sound and sense, and trying to echo back its music that descends on all with the fading twilight.

DHAN GOPAL MUKERJI.

N. B.—Since some of these poems were born without, and defy titles, I have refrained from forcing any on them.

CONTENTS

POEM

PAGE

SYMBOLISM

1

3

SOURCE OF SINGING

2

4

"WITH PURPLE SHADOWS THE MIST MEASURES THE INFINITE SEA"

3

5

"O, OLD! O, NEW!"

4

6

"THE FAR AWAY CALLED HER"

5

8

LASSITUDE

6

10

"AH! PALE, COOL LIPS THAT BURN"

7

11

FORLORN

8

12

AFTER A BENGALI SONG

9

13

MOONRISE

10

14

AT VENTURA, CALIFORNIA

11

15

"THE SAME AIR THAT YOU BREATHE"

12

16

"WHY THIS RETURN?"

13

17

"BY THE VERGE OF THE WOODLAND"

14

18

THE DREAM OF HIS SOUL

15

19

THE EURASIAN

16

20

"IN THE PERFUMED SHRINE OF LOVE"

17

21

THE INFIRM BEGGAR SINGS

18

22

"KISS, MY LOVE, KISS"

19

23

COLOR-HARMONIES

20

24

SANATAN (THE ABSOLUTE)

21

25

COMING OF THE FOG

22

26

"IN LOVE'S AFTERGLOW, FULL OF STARS"

23

27

THE END

24

28

THE CONFLUENCE

25

30

"IN THE DEEPS OF DREAM"

26

31

TO LEO B. MIHAN

27

32

CHOPIN'S FUNERAL MARCH

28

33

"IN THE GOLDEN AFTERGLOW YOU LAY"

29

34

HENRIK IBSEN

30

36

AFTER HEARING "MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME"

31

37

THE COMING OF THE TIDE OF NIGHT

32

38

DEAD LOVE

33

39

"IT IS THE SAME TWILIGHT, DEAR"

34

40

WEARINESS

35

42

"A CALL, NOT A SONG"

36

43

REMORSE

37

44

POET

38

45

WANDERER

39

46

AT DAWN

40

47

"FROM HER MANY-COLORED BOW, NATURE"

41

48

"IF WORDS FAIL, SONG WILL COME"

42

49

RAINY NIGHT

43

50

GHOSTS

44

51

RAIN

45

52

EVENING WORSHIP

46

54

"THE ROSY MIST STILLY POLISHES THE ROUND MIRROR"

47

55

"THE SUN'S GOLDEN SPEAR"

48

56

TRUCE

49

57

A PARALLEL

50

58

"'NOTHING ENDURES,' YOU SAID"

51

59

DISAPPOINTMENT

52

60

BUDDHA

53

61

"ASK ME NOT TO STAND AT THY FRIENDSHIP'S GATE"

54

62

"GOLDEN VINES THEY"

55

63

AT SUNDOWN

56

64

"TEARS WELL OUT FROM MY HEART"

57

65

"AT LAST THOU COMEST"

58

66

"THE LINGERING LIGHT OF THE SUN"

59

67

"I HAVE DRUNK YOUR TEARS WITH INSATIATE LIPS"

60

68

SOUND BUTTERFLIES (IN A FOUNTAIN)

61

69

"EVEN IN SADNESS THOU ART BESIDE ME"

62

70

"BY THE SEA OF SLEEP WALKS WHITE-ROBED NIGHT"

63

71

FAREWELL (AFTER A HINDUSTANI SONG)

64

72

SATIETY

65

74

"DROWSY THE NOONDAY AIR"

66

75

CHATTERTON

67

76

"A SUMMER SONG IT WAS"

68

77

"WHO KNOWS"

69

78

THE FIRST VISION

70

80

SHANTI

71

82

SANDHYA, SONGS OF TWILIGHT

I

SYMBOLISM

Tongueless the bell!

Lute without a song!

It is not night

It is God's dawn,

Silence its unending song.

Over heart's valley,

In the soul's night,

Through pain's window

Behold! His light!

On Life's Height.

No prayer, now,

Though death-waves roll,

Faith's candle lit,

Beside it sits the soul

Reading Eternity's scroll.

2

SOURCE OF SINGING

A bruised heart,

A wounded soul,

A broken lute,

That is all!

A sad evening,

And a lone star,

Then song reddens—

Sets life's forest afire!

3

With purple shadows the mist measures the infinite sea

That spreads her wave-raiment in lavender, violet, gray, and green;

While with thin silver rays a lone star seeks to sound the deeps.

The breeze-wings tire of flight;

The mist-threads weave a rose-fringed dusky drapery

To cover the bare breasts of the dunes from the moon's langour-heavy eyes.

The shadows die in purple silence;

Fades the one star from the sky,

As the dark mist puts out the rose-red moon from its deep.

Pale gleams the lighthouse light;

No warring waves break the peace of sleep tonight

Nor a hungry wind shrieks in pain from the lea.

Under her heavy veil of black

A languid sea sluggishly flows

To some far land of forsaken dreams.

4

"O, OLD! O, NEW!"[1]

Who are you?

Why make me wait

From the hour of dew

Till another sunset?

Why do I look

For your coming?

Listen to the weeping brook

That might bring

To my lonely shore

A word from you.

Ah, nothing! not a leaf's tremor!

O, old! O, longed for new!

Who are you? I ask;

Know not why I seek

From day to dusk

Without waking or sleep,—

No sleep! no waking!

A dreaming, a longing;

Not knowing, yet seeking,

For your coming waiting—

O, spring-born!

O, autumn-clad!

O, soul's new morn!

O, old! O, glad!

So glad, so young!

O, unseen, unknown,

O, fugitive vision!

O, eternal moan

In my heart—

O, tearful Soul of laughter,

Untouched, unhurt,

O, sweet! O, bitter!

My born yet unborn,

Shadow not fallen

O, undawning morn—

O, message unbroken.

Why, how, when?

I wait, wait for you,

O embrace of earth and heaven;

O, Old! O, New!

[1] "O, Old! O, New!" is the cry of a "Poáti," e. g., a mother's cry to her unborn child. "Poáti" has no precise English synonym.

5

The far away called her—

A pilgrim on the hope-lit bark of youth,

A woman, a child, a soul

On an argosy for the lands of south.

It called her in her dreams;

Her waking into a deeper dream grew;

The flute of the distant

Played ceaselessly the music of the new.

With words of fire it called her,

Beyond the bourne of her days

To a silent sea of joy

Washed by unending twilight-rays.

It called her at dawn

When night shed the star-jewels from her hair;

It called her at sunset

When the moon mutely ascended the heaven's stair.

It called her without ceasing—

Hour after hour but a calling,

Till "Come, come, come!"

At her soul's door kept repeating:

Come, come, come!—in

Her word, her music, her song;

Far away, near, far again

Heedless of nightfall and dawn.

It called, it cried, it prayed,

Till She, the deity, made answer

Through youth, through age, through death

To her own far away's receding star.

6

LASSITUDE

Ah! to be able to sing,

To sorrow in melody;

To string with silver

Sorrow's dark harp!

Or, mount every thorn

Crowning life's brow

With lustrous stars—

Those tears of the sky.

Rolling down its face

When night's hand puts

Darkness's crown on its head

As twilight dies.

None of these, for my soul;

Only to weep is given to me,

To nourish my heart's crop

For the scythe of barrenness to reap.

7

Ah! pale cool lips that burn,

Body that yields, though unyielding,

Oh, moon with the heat of the sun!

Flashing out a million lights

To cleave into nothing the endless firmament of my being.

Take all; my soul's mistress! heart's queen,

The flaming fancies of my dream-tortured night

The intoxicating fruits of my day dream,

The fiery lotus of my senses' delight

That rises from the abyss of my life.

The abysmal heaven of love and living

Now bruised, burnt, torn and thrown

To the winds of thy ravishing rejoicing

Whose inarticulate words of delight and moan

Make the ever-yielding music of my soul.

8

FORLORN

In the star-blurred hours of the night

When the cloud-dams stay the flow of winds,

Not even the shadow of a meteor moves,

As in the watch-tower of love I sit;

Through the casement of hope look for thy coming

Along the moss-grown path of stones—

Those agonies that time has built on my soul—

By the unfathomable lake of my tears

Shed when even prayers had failed

To bring thy returning.

Come, destroyer of my peace and sleep,

Plunderer of lights of my days!

Enigma on the scroll of my fate

Before the lightnings fired my tower

And thunders crashed in my life's sky.

Only send the echo of thy footfalls—

The ring of thy song,

And a star—reflection of thy smile—

Those million suns in the firmament of my dawn.

9

AFTER A BENGALI SONG

In the forest of my being the voice of your lute;

In the depth of my heart the pearl of your tear;

In the temple of my soul chimes the bell of your love.

The fire of dawn, shadow of eve,

Life's sorrow, and death's mute-enchanting peace

Steal away silently, fearfully, at thy flute's music.

O, frail, faint call which I seek to echo!

O, breath of love laden with the aroma of my soul!

Why seek I ever without, O guest at my door?

10

MOONRISE

A soft light mantle of rose wear the brown hills

As they look down on the valley where the rills

Spin their long silver embroideries

For the fringe of spring's greenéd draperies.

The cloud-banks recede with the fading breeze,

The warblers fall into silence in the trees

To listen to many-colored dream-melodies

That the mute stars make on sleep's endless seas.

The last light flickers out of the sky,

Shadows with golden feet o'er the green valley hie;

The silver rills trill like warblers from earth's deeps

As the moon, the sun of another dawn, heavenward leaps.

11

AT VENTURA, CALIFORNIA

The moon rises and washes the brine with silver;

The dunes like white elephants restfully asleep after the chase;

And the fog comes to bring the moon its veil of shades.

The waves stretch their phosphorescent arms

To embrace the night,

The wind like a wounded gull beats its wings

Over the land, over the sea, into the fog-vested intangibility.

Like a thousand trumpets the breakers

Proclaim the empiry of night,

The rocky caverns send back echoes

Like homage from vassals near and far;

A faint cry seemeth to flash like lightning;

Through the clouds of the roar of waves:

It is not from the rocks, nor from the sea;

Ah! it is the prayer of a mightier ocean—Humanity!

12

The same air that you breathe

Is the air that caresses my sky;

The sunlight that lingers on your hair and lips

Sets fire to the pathway of my life;

And the call of nature's numberless birds

But reflects in world's mirror the music of our heart's singing—

Melody made of sweet agonies,

Exquisite joys poured from pitchers of pain,

As this summer's heat

From the ever-burning heart of heaven.

Not heaven alone;

The earth, the air, flowers, and leaves

Filled with passion that knows no slaking,

Yet tranquil like sleep's dream-billowed sea.

More than dream-billowed sea this love that I bring,

Its boistrous waves seek the firmament of your yielding;

While your heart-beats' arrows seek to slay my heart a'beating,

As I inhale the fragrance of your breath and hair;

And pour the perfume of my soul

On your sun-bathed feet.

13

Why this return?

Why this sunlight

When all seemed without sun?

Whence this call?

I cannot tell,

Yet its mighty thralls.

Hold me, haunt me

Hour after hour,

With its name of thee.

All seems ended,

The last light lost

In the house of the dead.

Yet with time's tide

Rises thy face,

My heart, my soul, my bride.

Though poureth the rain,

And sorrow clouds my sky,

Yet not mine the pain.

What I hear

I can not tell,

And what I fear,

Will not endure:

But thou returnest,

O serene, O silent, O pure!

14

By the verge of the woodland,

Where purling brooks loosen their brown tresses,

Where the music of the breeze

Is played on viols of the vines and trees,

Thy soft words I hear

Like songs from enchantment's strings.

Ah, vanishing moments of ecstacy!

Far-fleeing only to be nearer to my soul,

Rest, rest awhile on the hillside of my echoing!

Pour on it the sweet rain of thy words' melody

Till they mingle and drown my tears

Into thy kisses' passion-swept sea.

15

THE DREAM OF HIS SOUL

The Dream of his Soul, in flesh and blood—

Not to possess, but only to see—

Was given him, for an hour:

Ah, fool, he lingered longer,—

The Dream died like the shadow of a Star!

16

THE EURASIAN

Indignity your part today,

Suffering the guerdon of the gods;

No country to claim your own,

Nowhere to lay your head.

The ocean of ignorance separates us;

The snow-storm of commerce blinds the eye;

Yet you must stand true,

Bridge of blood and flesh between the West and East.

In ages to come, when

Man will love his brother,

Irrespective of birth and breed;

In the pantheon of the future, yours the immortal seat.

Son of man, you are brother!

Bearer of the cross of God!

Your destiny the lodestar of our epoch,

Your life our rood-littered road of the Lord.

Arise, awake, halt not

Till the goal is reached;

Raise high the Host of freedom

Blare the trumpet of light.

"Suffer you, for the world to rejoice";

"Die" so they "can live";

Live that you may bring the light

To the meeting place of the West and East.

17

In the perfumed shrine of love,

Where burns memory's exhaustless incense

From the irridescent thurible of hope,

On the altar and couch of my heart

Rest thy limbs, O, god of my soul.

Drink of the unquenchable draught of caresses;

Tear the flowers of my dreams and fancies;

Scatter the sacred petals of my passion

To the four winds of thy rejoicing.

Thy rejoicing, that one festival of the High Gods,

Where no offering that I bring ever be too dear,

Where no soul burnt in the fire of senses can perish;

Where no suffering fails to be mother and daughter of joy.

Take all, great God among these Gods:

The pearl of my woman-soul buried in deeps of passion,

The coral-wreath from the ocean of my bleeding heart;

And ravish with exquisite merciless touch

The one star in my heaven that has led thee hither—

My life's eternity in this worship of an hour.

18

THE INFIRM BEGGAR SINGS

Broken and bruised by the hand of Fate,

Dark night, my staff,

Leaning on its shadowy strength I walk

Toward thee, my God.

Thy crescent my e'er-present friend;

Thy wind, thy voice,

Calls me to go on without end

To thy star that my soul hath seen.

The hour is black, my road unbuilt;

My beggar's song

I cannot sing; yet, thou knowest,

For thy love I long!

I come, O Lord! broken and battered

To thy world where sorrow is not.

19

Kiss, my love, kiss

My burning, breaking being;

So when cold death

Will put out the light

In some wilderness

Of far forsaken life

Might each kiss blossom

Into a lotus and a Shephali.[2]

And in the desolate hours

Of loneliness of traveling

In the dusk of despair

One petal of these

Will cheer the vagrant souls

That tread the pathway

Of love's forsaking.

Or, when Death will sow

This Soul of mine

On the lake-shore of sorrow,

Like a weeping willow I will spring,

And with my green tresses

And bending body

Shall shelter secrecy-seeking lovers

That love for an hour,

As our twin hearts today.

Kiss then, with kisses of flame;

Touch me with rosy caresses;

Bury this, my hope, my dream,

And thy all-conquering love of me;

So the kiss-flowers may each be a dream!

May my willow be the vision of Eternal Spring.

[2] Flowers full of perfume, abounding in Lower Bengal, India.

20

COLOR-HARMONIES

Violet hills,

Rosy mist,

Limpid pool,

Golden notes from sunset's lute

For shadows

Draped in green

With purple feet

To dance and swim

Through irridescent undulatings.

Dusk descends;

Mauve cloudlets—

Dying butterflies—

Flit and fly and die

In the opalescent ocean of mist

That grows dark and still,

Kisses away the last gold

From the brow of the hills;

Till the coral crescent

With its wand of breeze

Makes silver ripple-music

On the pool's shadow-laden deeps.

21

SANATAN

(THE ABSOLUTE)[3]

Our hopes that fail

Are but truths that set

To illumine other spirits on their pathway;

As our joys that come true

Are their far-off dreams,

That through the cadence of our life

Ring out their pent-up tunes.

Whatever dies—needs must live,

Whatever breathes doth die too;

But above death and life

Shines that High Light

Where all find rest,

Yet endlessly move.

[3] The word absolute is the synonym for the Sanskrit word Sanatan, meaning Eternal and Immutable Truth.

22

COMING OF THE FOG

Killing the light,

Blurring the stars,

Marring the breeze—

Nature's many-stringed harp—

It comes

Silently, sinisterly,

Over the land, over the sea,

Spreading its beggar-raiment of brown.

Without stop, without sound,

Over the valley

Like a great serpent of silence

Coiling around the heart of sound.

A damp insidiousness

Creeps into the night;

A drab numbness sets in

Dripping in lugubrious drops

From the haggard fingers

Of the autumn trees.

It strangles the last sound,

It devours the last light,

Trembles in fear

To see its own visage;

It moves on, on, and around,

Ceaselessly, untiringly,

Till the black night is drowned

In an abyss of brown.

23

In love's afterglow, full of stars,

Those lilies of the river of night,

Sing no song, dear, speak no word.

The white noontide has ebbed into gold;

Shores-breaking seas cease to roar;

Lo! the moonrise of our soul.

Hardly a kiss, or the shadow of a caress;

No decking the hour with the jasmines of touch;

But a rose-petal shivering in exquisite agony—our love.

The weary sunset has grown wearier;

A vague lassitude encircles us twain,

As separation builds its pathway of tears.

Cease weeping, yet the saffron light lingers;

The stars throb in nebulous lustre,

As our hearts to the music of desire.

What matters if winter be nigh?

We sang summer to sleep,

And autumn on its bed of leaves.

Now comes the hour of parting for us,

As the last light flickers and fades;

Even love's afterglow dying, and is dead.

Alas! thou art gone, as are the hours of day;

The hard gem-burning stars do not set! Oh,

In what dark, in what forest roamest thou?

24

THE END

Art thou about me

Amid falling leaves

And autumn's circling winds

When the golden shadows

Grow russet and rosy

And the purple sunset sets fire to the sky?

Art thou the breath

That burns my being

When cold feel my limbs in terror, and awe?

Who art thou? My love?

Stranger in a strange garb!

Far and farther to be nearer to my heart!

Why make spring-flames leap

From passion's autumn leaves?

Why this urge through fatigue

When time falls fast asleep

Under the shadow of its grave—

The winter ice?

Yet, and yet

The circling winds

Repeat passionate speech,

The sunset burns,

As my soul

In desire's golden heat,

Though night be not far

Shadows creep near

With chilling breath and clutching hands

To pluck

To destroy

The flowers of yielding from your heart:

Powerless, fear-stricken;

I tremble, I stagger, I fall

Into oblivion's pit

As time creeps

Into winter's grave

Silent, empty, white.

25

THE CONFLUENCE

Tears of Ages come in a stream,

Sighs flow in from Life's hoary height,

Souls of Sorrow bring their gleam

Of a light that is but a moan, not a sight.

The gray waves of the Sea of Death

Congeal under the cold Sun of Suffering,

While Time, playing the flute of Fate,

Charms them, snake-like, and doth bring.

Out of a Cave, beyond Lights and Shades

Present's storm,—made stormier by Future's promises,—

To mingle in the Ocean of Death

Like Sleep, yielding to Dream's caresses.

26

In the deeps of Dream

O'er the pool of Sleep

A lone star her face

Seeking, with song-kindled eyes

Her Isle of Rest.

Across the dusky hills

The first flush of waking

Unfurls its silver banner

To signal the Isle for her:

She vanishes, as before, into the fading Night.

Thus the Eye of Life

Searches for the home of Peace

Night after night:

And when the sun of Death rises

It flees,—it loves its own night.

27

TO

LEO B. MIHAN

Few notes out of the coffer of sound,

An image from the gallery of Nature,

An hour from the infinity of Time,—

Out of these, blessed creature,

Createst thou the world of endless rhyme!

28

CHOPIN'S FUNERAL MARCH

The keyboard black and white;

Shadow-Light the Evening's scale;

Half silent the voice of thy singing.

Quiver the notes in pain;

Exquisite, sad, the melody at thy touch;

Like the silver arrow of Desire

Piercing the Soul's golden heart.

The room is lost in dark.

The ivory keys, white fringe

Of a music long since mute;

Yet, in the black night

Tremble and toss notes

Unheard, undreamt,—like sleep

Sleepless, and waking full of smart.

29

In the golden afterglow you lay,

When the emerald moon

Made thin silver fog-veils

For the bride of night,

Whose saffron-sandled feet

Walked the foam-strewn floor of the sea.

In my arms you listened

To words of love

Poured by the infinite heaven of my heart,

Echoed by the endless symphony of the sky.

Your silent gaze,

Deeper than the song of the sea,

Farther than the moon,

Nearer than your own heart-beat,

Asked mine for speech.

"What can my love say

At this sad sacred hour?"

Hour of parting this!

Love's ever-feared moment,

Longing's much-dreaded end,

Yet no voice sorrows in our being,

No woe dims the moon-face tonight.

Between the sheltering dunes and fading light

On an aërial couch lying,

Adorned in kiss-woven garments of nudity

Our spirits garlanded with myriad embraces,

Borne on passion's flaming wings

Cross this ocean of parting

Unto that far island of Cythera

Where only love reigns

In eternal majesty.

30

HENRIK IBSEN

Lone as the lone north star,

Stern as the rocks that guard the sanctity of his home,

Pure as the white snow of his land,

And beauteous his visions like the fjords

At each turn of the mariner's helm.

The lofty glaciers engage his eyes,

As life's height the sight of his mind;

And his Imagination, expansive as the sea,

Tries to push the boundary-line of the sky, his Soul,

Further and further, where a new North Star

Awaits his exploring eye.

31

AFTER HEARING "MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME"

I know not whose the words,

Nor the maker of their music;

In my sorrow-laden heart

The aroma of its pathetic art

Like the soothing breath of dream.

Joy borrows its charm from sorrow;

Sorrow feverish with the color of joy;

An opaque crystal, a stone on life's string

Made of music that doth ring

As the stars on the lyre of night.

A pain it is, made perfect;

A call made clear by the voice of peace;

A silver stream of song

Darkened, yet floweth on and on

Between black banks of memory, into the Soul's white home.

32

THE COMING OF THE TIDE OF NIGHT

Pale this twilight-face,

Shade-ridden the horizon-light;

The forest, a green-gold vision of grace

In its frame of lavender mist.

No rose-leaf washed in moonlight;

No vine on vermilion walls;

Pale sunlight fading into night,

Dark tunes, the music of the hour.

No death, nor life is ours, here;

But the vast vague sea of black

Sounded by star-mariners

Seeking the Infinite's track.

33

DEAD LOVE

Pour no blood on ashes, brother,

That is not the way;

Better say nothing,

Blood is no life-giver;

It makes death look so gay.

Dead life, or dead love

Need no blood at all.

No trumpet's call can

Bring back what you lived, and strove:

The ashes know no thrall!

Why cry for a colored glass

That for jewel you took;

The magic—the dream—

All returning to dust and grass,

Not a day love your soul forsook.

At last, you have known it,

That is more than they do.

Be not afraid, O friend,

Alone, alas, alone! you have loved and lived it,

Pour no blood on the ashes, for blood can not turn into dew.

34

It is the same twilight, dear,

The hour of love and tear

When in raiments of shadows

Fancies, fears, hopes, and sorrows

Tread the path of sunset,

While like barks of jet

Float the clouds from east to west.

I think of thee, my darling,

As in my heart strange chords ring

Out melodies of many memories,

And half-forgotten reveries

Telling of this or that scene,

That is and has been

Trod by thee, Queen of queens.

My dreams of thee are ceaseless,

As my love of thee is endless;

Whether it be sunset or sunrise,

Hour of star-song, or bird-cries

It is of thee that I dream,

In the heart of my soul's stream

That flows to thy feet, my darling.

Dark grows both east and west;

Flower-heads droop into rest,

As I seek to lay my heart and loving

On thy star-white breast, my darling,

And sink into that pool of sleep

That rises from thy singing's deep,

While all are silent, as my desires near thee, my Queen.

What peace thy presence breathes!

What serenity weaves its wreathes!

What myriad wonders touch hands

Across many seas, from many lands,

When a thought of thee

Heralds thy coming to me

Between palpitating desires, and fragrant dreams.

35

WEARINESS

Weariness the tune of this evening melody,

Pain the lute to which I sing;

Ah! goddess, why this gray measure

In thy starry harmony?

The white conch[4] of the half-moon

Silent as though all worship's ceased,

No incense-perfume from the forest censer

The breeze brings; all still, like torrid noon.

I row in a black bark on a copper-colored sea,

The sun fades like a golden bubble in its deep;

Weariness the chart that I hold in my hand,

Weariness the tune of this evening melody.

[4] In a Hindu temple conch shells are blown during or at the close of a worship.

36

A call, not a song;

A command, not a prayer;

No mellowing moonlight, but dawn,

Frail, fanciful, and fair

In the east of my dream and desire.

At the portal of unending desire,

Draped in diaphanous dreams,

With a whispered word of fire

That quivers and gleams

Through the clouds of my longing.

Longings poignant with pains and tears

Enfold, and fill my soul

That aches with hopes and fears

As thy chariot wheels' roll

Sets fire with torches of gold

To my words, my silences, my singing,

And to this black pyre of my life

To take my being on the wings of thy embracing

To sail away, far away from man's hate and strife

Where only love reigns on its throne of unending light.

37

REMORSE

Gently descending dark—

Curtain of silence

From heaven to earth;

The drama of day over,

Empty the seats of life,

Dead the twilight fire.

Curtains of black

Woven from threads of purple

By the hands of a star,

That lone soul weeping

Over the dead hours

Laid by mute time in the eternal's grave.

In the night of my soul

Not even a ray,

Nor a mourner present;

But a deep dark hollow

Where no fate weeps

Even fear is afraid to tread:

Fear-forsaken, hollow within hollow,

Even silence flees from me—

O, the pity of it!

38

POET

To distil a few golden drops of song

Through the gloom of this hour;

To filter true emotions

Through passion's burning fire

When the sun bubble-like fades in the west;

As our being craves for night's rest

That pool of silver in life's forest of distress.

To light some pale candles

In the cavern of a lonely isle

And draw the wine of day

From the must of midnight,

Or plant a star-seed in the gray-ploughed eve—

So out of the abyss of the blackness of night

Dawn's million-colored fountain might spring.

39

WANDERER

The silvery beach, a riband around the flowing hair of the sea,

Where gleam the foam-flowers garlanded in multitudinous nebulous rings:

Here, on the frontier of many worlds and the billow-rocked cradle of eternal sleep,

No sound, no music, no silence that a wounded soul can heal.

A longing more tempestuous than the craven breeze-possesséd deep,

And tears that outweigh the salt of the woeful brine,

Yet no sleep dream-robbed, or dream-laden, nor even death's pallid peace;

But a ceaseless crying over my heart's forsaken valleys

Where love like a wraith haunts the empty tombs of memory.

40

AT DAWN

With the breath of dawn

Cooling thy feverish brow,

And the fading of the last footfall of the stars

No kiss can I bring to thy bedside,

Nor caresses of cooling fire, my sweet.

Yet through this dreamful silence

That writes on the rim of the golden light

The story of our love

With most eloquent poignancy,

More love we pour into each other

Than the tryst of an eternal night.

41

From her many-colored bow Nature

Has hurled her silver arrows of rain

And slain the hosts of Dark.

Jeweled with a single star, the Moon

Walks the garden of Night;

Higher and higher

Through the star-enflowered pathways of sapphire

She draws her train of silver.

42

If words fail, song will come;

If thought fades, souls will not be dumb;

If sound ceases, Silence our song;

If Life fails,—Death join our hands.

43

RAINY NIGHT

Like tears shed over a dream,

Like sighs that stream

In an unseen nameless way

Into the heart of our lay.

It seemed hour on hours,

Years like fading flowers

Scattered their petals and bloom

In a half-lit forest of gloom.

The softness of its sounds,

Like the coursing of a million hounds

Of dream over the glade of sleep

Where tortured silences creep.

Exquisite, pain-laden, peaceful,

This night most beautiful,

What love forsaken by loving

Sets his heart a'singing?

No torment in it, but tenderness;

A liquid star-music of sadness

Pours into my soul half asleep;

While the willows at my window weep.

44

GHOSTS

Flames flickered in the fireplace,

As memories on the hearth of life;

Two shadows we, watching, brooding,

To catch our reflection

In a non-existent stream.

The ghost-witness of it all,

The clock brings its proofs;

Moments melt into moments,

Like notes of sad music,

Like a white cerement.

Cold memories shroud our life;

Speech flees before this;

Faces turn away from each other;

The fire throws light on them;

There, too, flames burn and flicker.

45

RAIN

What world-agony distils its poignancy this day?

What pain-laden heart pours out its exhaustless lay

Of tormenting woe and tortured silences?

From the far reaches of the marshland

Along and beyond the crescent-bed of the sea-sand

What tempest on the wave's-strings makes its cadences?

The distant hills dimmed like dull and forgotten dreams

Raise their shadowy heads where pour in streams

The tears of the heart-hollowed mourners of the skies;

While into the turgid heart of the fens at their feet

Turbidly fall and dance sheet upon sheet

To the measureless measure of the wind's empty sighs.

No light but a dismal gray, that neither throbs nor quivers

On the torn banks of the heavens' cloud-rivers,

But stonily stands still, like death that dies never.

Not-dead, but a weeping world bathing its corpses—

Its memories, its lost hopes, in regret's hearses

To be buried in flowerless graves, without incense or prayer.

It writhes in agony, rolls out in undulating rills,

This rain-melody from the sea-waves to the farthest hills,

Thence to the dreary distance lost to hearing or sight.

It is all dark and dank, a mourning of earth and heaven,

Sorrow-laden, life-weary, long-lost, death-craven,

A day lost to time, a light more baleful than night.

No dead these, but a living death seeking peace

From the furies—their own thoughts—sorrow—surcease,

Kissing the lashing wind thinking it to be the breeze.

Pour, pour, pour, O relentless, exhaustless pain!

To the measure of thine own agony, thy woe's refrain,

These desolate streams of thy music, thy pangs of a million seas.

46

EVENING WORSHIP

The amber west melts into saffron,

The east, a misty vision of rose:

Like the sun, our souls seek repose.

The mountains, empurpled priests,

The river, the chant from their lips,

Sunlit the pine-candles' crimson tips.

At this hour of worship

Shadows spread their wings;

Silently the breeze-bell rings.

The stars put a silver riband round night's tresses,

The light fades like a receding song

As fall soundless sounds from Nature's

moon-gong.

47

The rosy mist stilly polishes the round mirror,

The moon;

Golden her face

Reflecting the cool sweet glory of a

Baby sun

When dangling

His short golden arms in the cradle of the sky

After night

Gave him birth,

And herself died as day dies to see the moon,

This golden

Rose-washed stone

That the unseen hand puts on the crown of night

Beside it puts

Bits of white—

The star-jewels like million fancies, worshipping

The goddess

Of dream.

48

The sun's golden spear,

The violet cloud writhing in pain;

Golden the tint of the sky,

The tall trees wave their green-gold hair.

Music of this hour!

The zephyr's perfume-laden argosy

Drifts with the song of lutes

Down the sunset-stream that falls from heaven's bower.

Another flow of light,

Tinkling like the intangible bells of paradise,

Flows out of my heart

Into the mysterious love-perfumed ocean of night.

49

TRUCE

A field of battle—this sky,

The sun, the hero bleeding to death;

The shadows and lights hurl their

Hosts of clouds ceaselessly:

No peace?

Warfare all?

Nay, lo! she cometh—

The Spirit of Truce,

The Evening Star!

50

A PARALLEL

Time has passed, since

Shadows trembled to watch

Twilight sweep the earth

For the phantoms to trip and mince.

A dark breeze the forest-heart stirs;

Yet merry the face of the sky—

Twinkling in joy

Its innumerable eyes, the stars.

Hushed the music within;

Pleasure's silver laugh, dead;

Thought lost in reverie—

Reverie receding into nothing.

The taper of dreams flickers

Out, leaving the soul in dusk

By the altar of love,

Flower-laden as the night with stars.

51

"Nothing endures," you said;

"None can die," quoth love;

"In the firmament of loving

No stars set, no meteors fall."

Yet, nothing endures, nothing,

Naught but dust;

Naught but regret and vain desire

The twin monuments of life,

Reared by time, by wrecking

All that we seek and find.

Its relentless waves of years

Break even the impregnable wall of memory

That thought builds

On the embankment of hope.

Pass all away, even we who loved,

Dreamt as none dreamt before—

Borne by the tide of life—

But, lo! from our defeated destiny

Rise our seeds reared by time

Consecrated to love and living!

52

DISAPPOINTMENT

They think thee bitter:

Thou art not made o' laughter

Nor love's smile

Can thy vision beguile:

Like a black-fiery comet

Suddenly, sinisterly, thou comest;

Making thy fateful journey,

Littering the floor of destiny

With wreckages of life,

Of love, of heart—

Of all visitors thou art the surest;

Halting nowhere long, endlessly passest,

Dragging behind thee thy train of fire

That burneth all, heedless of curse or prayer.

53

BUDDHA

On thy Lotus-seat of Night,—

Meditation closing thy eyes,—

The Star Hosts thy awe-struck devotees:

The Moon, thy halo unchanging.

White-robed time telling his beads

Of aeons on the thread of Eternity

By the ocean of space

Slumbering in peace at thy feet;

While Destiny stringing the lyre of death

Sings Nirvana's hymn.

54

Ask me not to stand at thy friendship's gate—

I, who loved thee, now must like a cold spectre from a far forgotten land of snow

Watch thee fall asleep on the couch of freezing friendship?

In these arms thou sought and joyed on many delights

Excavated the ruins of passion to build them anew,

Or sailed on thy wings—these arms—over love's enchanted sea.

Friendship!

Barrier not this, but a coward's refuge—

A shadow, not the rainbow-light of loving and life.

O come, my pilot, conduct the bark of our twin souls

From cold friendship's haven

Over love's boistrous desire-foam-fringéd ocean

Till in the sheer joy and fatigue of flying

We fail, fall and fade

Into the heart of Passion's another fire-born day.

55

Golden vines they,

These thin lines of light,

Climbing the sky-wall

After the sun sank into sleep.

Like rills, thread-like,

Seen from a jutting rock

Where air is dizzy

And fancy infinite, free.

What fiery wine

Tingles in these vines

Weaving golden arabesques

On the pale evening sky?

Ah, the heavens this hour

Have drunk of sunset's ruby Wine

For those golden cobwebs to weave

Their magic of twilight dreams.

56

AT SUNDOWN

Two shadows fell, tremulous and frail,

From the upland over the lake-surface pale,

While the shivering reeds shook at sunset,

As the swans sailed into a sea of jet.

The rippling waters, and the breeze,

And the shadows that fall from the trees,

Mingled and melted with the twain,

A song of whitewashed away by its black refrain.

Only words remained, palpitating and few,

Falling through the gloom and night's dew

Like jewelled fancies rising out of a dream

That live for a moment and die ere they gleam.

57

Tears well out from my heart,

As clouds overcast my soul,

And blur my vision of thee.

Melancholy this dawn,

When thy smile and words,

And thy sky-shaming eyes

Are not beside me to rouse me from sleep.

Though cry I without end,

Yet a thought of thee heals many wounds,

Why? thou ask me; how can I tell?

All thou wish to take is thine;

Not even the dust of thy feet I seek,

Only leave me the star of thy memory

To bathe in the rain of my weeping.

58

At last thou comest;

Thy footsteps I hear across the ages,

Over wandering fancies,

Through shadows of dreams

Is thy coming, Queen of queens.

This shimmering summer of life

That thou bringest with thee

As a gift to my silent waiting

Is but what I prayed to bring

To the altar of thy coming.

I spread the seat of my soul,

For thee to rest thy tired limbs;

And wave the fan of my heart

To cool thy lotus-shaming face,

Lady of light, queen of grace.

Come to my bower of worship,

Where burns the incense of devotion,

Lay thy rose-robed body

In the shrine of my longing,

Where love's rainbow-songs are ringing.

59

The lingering light of the sun

Takes from the chalice of the valley

Its mist-perfume to wash the

Moon-face with rose.

In the pool at my feet the goldfishes drag their trains of brown

Which cleave it into parts that ceaselessly mingle anew.

The moon, silver bright

Through thousand streams sends her light

Into the valley aswoon, listening to the harmony of night.

60

I have drunk your tears with insatiate lips;

I have broken like a toy the heart of your life;

What have I given? your last query!

The cup of my heart filled I with love;

The chalice of soul with the substance of my God,

For thee to drink my life's first love.

Thou drankest as one that comes from a desert,

Thou spiltest the nectar heedless, like mad;

Yet I cursed not, nor shed tears;

But loved thee, longed to live for thy love.

Alas! thy tears grew salt, thy love thy self's greedy grasp,—

O, it is the end; let us part!

The morning of indifference wings the gray sky;

The bird-song of the other dawns the raven's shriek now,—

Shed no more tears, I tire of my drink;

Break not thy heart; thy soul? Let it be still!

Beyond the gray-cloud is the land of sunrise:

Let us part, dear, let us be wise.

61

SOUND BUTTERFLIES

(IN A FOUNTAIN)

Like interpenetrating bells of silver,

The water-drops ring and melt

Into new drops, like new notes

From an untiring lyre,

That in colored succession

Paint our heart-beats

From the gold of sunrise into sunset fire;

Yet, not like that, this brush of water-drops

Limns on the silver rim of Joy

The dark Butterflies of Desire.

62

Even in sadness thou art beside me,

In gladness, none so happy as thee;

I love thee;

May my love kiss the feet of thy love of me.

My dreams are thine, day or night,

My sleep sings in silence to the night

Of thy delight;

May thy heart's gifts like stars my heart's heaven bedight!

Though a sigh rises in my soul this hour;

Closes its petals in the west the golden day-flower;

In my bower

Let thy love pour its rainbow shower.

63

By the sea of sleep walks white-robed Night;

The breeze but the faint rustle of her drapery

That calls the mist-made bark of dream

From the cavern of the Unknown to sail to us,

Laden with endless star-like fancies.

And She! the magician, walks on and on

Over the sapphire embankment of the sky

Like a moving magnet drawing behind her a million dream-argosies.

64

FAREWELL

(AFTER A HINDUSTANI SONG)

Farewell, fairest of loves!

Life's most fanciful of gifts,

Joy and treasure, love and wonder,

Waking's elusive reality,

Dream's ever-yielding divinity.

Even thou must pass

Beyond time's starless bar:

Thy eyes, their lambent flames

Shall no more illumine my night;

Nor thy brow, home of many moods,

Tranquil yet tormented as a sea,

Shall ever wear the coronal of my kiss.

Ah, kisses! blisses of fire,

Passion's long lingering melody

Played by thy lips on mine.

Even they must die—

Intangible realities of rapture,

Ever present wonders of desire—

Now like autumn leaves

Fly with the west-wind of fear.

No, not fear that takes thee from me,

Nor love's slayer, satiety;

Yet art gone; thou art going.

Oh, not to crush thy heart on mine:

Thy breasts made but for my hands,

No more to quiver in rapture therein!

Who wills this cruel decree?

The warmth of thy body,

The staggering storm of thy yielding,

The intoxicating perfume of thy mouth:

These, and many other endless

Viols and lutes of passion, love, life,

Delights of a thousand heavens,

Who robs them of me?

Fate! that fool in the court of love,

Who hath no wit for laughter,

Steals it all from me

In the mid-hour of life;

And as it befits his mind,

Scatters it all over the turbid

Stream of fear and lies.

65

SATIETY

All thy gifts must die,

All thy thoughts must fail;

Such were the decree writ by time

With shadows on the scroll of fate.

Even thy memory recedes into forgetting,

Thy lustrous words star-like set,

Ah, sweet! autumn's breath withers all,

Even the west-wind fears to tread.

All yield to the power of relentless time

That no love nor passion can stay,

Blown like dried leaves we now

On the granite pavement of fate.

No more thy lip-touch on my brow,

Nor thy hands pleading caresses,

Thy gifts fall and fade into nothing,

Thy vision grows dim in life's sunset-west.

66

Drowsy the noonday air,

Under the trees the still shadow

Like a fugitive fragment of night

Seeks shelter from the sun.

The bird has ceased singing,

The beggar unable to bear

The wealth of the sun

Spreads his torn garment,

To find peace in

The benign shadow of sleep.

Ah, lone soul like him,

I spread this rag of my song.

Under the tree of life

Over which blazes the sun of fate.

The calm of its shadow

Protects me, but where my peace?

67

CHATTERTON

For summers seventeen

This flower of spring

Scattered fragrance

That dwelt in its petals seventeen.

Seventeen song-hours,

A heart never weary;

A soul with honey of all flowers

A song as enchanting as stars.

A boy never grown old,

A lute never tiring to sing,

A mind ne'er chilled

Though Hunger's hand lay cold.

Steely-cold on his breast,

Yet the boy sang;

Loved as alone a poet can

Endlessly, without rest.

Just seventeen!

Ne'er old, though time passes;

A golden lyre-string

Has not yet ceased ringing:

Rings through the heart of time

O'er the summit of death

To the music of the Nine

Into the heart of Eternal Rhyme.

68

A summer song it was,

Counting of many unseen stars

In an intangible sky

Making new milky ways—

Silver-shadow-paths that lead

From sapphire abysses

Into deeper abysses still.

The deeps of our souls

Lit by passion's burning flowers

Tremulous, timorous flames of silver,

That with thousand hands

Our hearts sought to pluck and scatter,

Or make barbéd garlands

For love's nuptial hour.

Nuptial hour, briefer than a moment,

Longer than Heaven's Eternal summer,

When each flower burns to soothe,

And each soothing petal burns anew;

Till myriad streams of fire

Strewn with countless flaming stars

Bear us to the far sea of Time

Where no summer dies,

Nor endure the stinging moments of love's winter.

69

"WHO KNOWS"

Time's torment,

Life's woes,

And sorrow's wan gaze

Are but shades

In a picture of light

Where nothing abides,

All things fade.

In fading there is beauty,

By shedding tears

We bathe our hearts—

Those crushed flowers full of smart—

For a deity not far from our souls.

Yet, no solace in prayer,

Pain has no largess;

Dark has stars,

But no barren earth its flowers.

All are dismal and fallow;

Yet, from the mountain's stony heart

Spring multitudinous rivers

Sparkling at dawn, and

Deepening night's gloom with mysterious murmurs;

And who knows?

These streams that pass

By the balcony of our past,

Through present's wilderness,

Into desolate future

May reach the land of the farthest star.

Who knows? Ah! who knows?

May these song-rills

From my heart's little hill

Empty their singing waters

Into a sea of song-making

Where nothing endures

But the sound and echo of singing.

Where sound, and echo are one,

A moonset vale of sunset land,

Where light is wedded to shade

Without death, full of dying, yet not dead.

70

THE FIRST VISION

The impenetrable dark—

Darkness of cloud and night

Coming on black silent wings

Surround me in their folds,

As it sits by my side on the shore of time.

No fear, no sorrow, no hope,

Not even the footfall of a star;

Dim, deep sable tones

Rise from the organ of nothing

With its flats and sharps of clouds and night.

Ripples of moments

Waves of hours and years

Break on the shore of space

To speak vague, soundless words

To my soul, alone, shade among shades.

Not even the unheard whisper

Of the shadow of a breeze,

But silence ponderous, peaceful,

Afraid of its own self

A mute hound at my feet.

Who art thou?

Whom do I know in this emptiness?

Who has lived with me?

And called me from the deeps of time?

Recedes the bank of space;

Fades away even the unfilled time,

No light, no sound, not even a dream;

Yet who speaks through silence?

Who plays this music of night?

Like an intangible river it flows

With waves of shadow-sound

Between banks of mountainous silence—

O, who! who are you?

Light in a world of shadows,

Rainbow among sunless clouds,

Bark of song on this sea of silence,

O ferryman of the soul!

O Word on Infinite's scroll.

71

SHANTI[5]

Sleep shadows, sleep light;

Sleep tune, sleep speech;

Sleep night, sleep day;

Sleep children in the cradle of rest.

Dream stars, dream moon;

Dream sea; dream O, sun;

Dream rainbow, dream storm;

Dream rain, O, milk from Heaven's breast.

Rest ye feet, rest ye hands;

Rest bleeding hours of even;

Rest O, heart torn and burnt,

Rest my fancies, day is done.

Sleep night, sleep with star-eyes closed;

Sleep sorrow in death's silent repose;

Sleep O, Soul, be it twilight or morn;

Sleep thou too, O, sleep, heedless of moon and sun.

[5] Shanti is the Sanskrit for "Peace."

ERRATA

Page 17, lines 6 and 7 should read as follows:

Yet its mighty thrall

Holds me, haunts me

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Table of Contents

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sandhya, by Dhan Gopal Mukerji

SANDHYA

SONGS OF TWILIGHT

DHAN GOPAL MUKERJI

AUTHOR OF "LAYLA-MAJNU" AND "RAJANI"

NINETEEN SEVENTEEN

PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY

SAN FRANCISCO

Copyright, 1917

TO MRS. HANCOCK BANNING MRS. WILLIAM CLARK, JR.

FOREWORD

CONTENTS

SANDHYA, SONGS OF TWILIGHT

I SYMBOLISM

2 SOURCE OF SINGING

3

4 "O, OLD! O, NEW!"[1]

5

6 LASSITUDE

7

8 FORLORN

9 AFTER A BENGALI SONG

10 MOONRISE

11 AT VENTURA, CALIFORNIA

12

13

14

15 THE DREAM OF HIS SOUL

16 THE EURASIAN

17

18 THE INFIRM BEGGAR SINGS

19

20 COLOR-HARMONIES

21 SANATAN

(THE ABSOLUTE)[3]

22 COMING OF THE FOG

23

24 THE END

25 THE CONFLUENCE

26

27 TO LEO B. MIHAN

28 CHOPIN'S FUNERAL MARCH

29

30 HENRIK IBSEN

31 AFTER HEARING "MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME"

32 THE COMING OF THE TIDE OF NIGHT

33 DEAD LOVE

34

35 WEARINESS

36

37 REMORSE

38 POET

39 WANDERER

40 AT DAWN

41

42

43 RAINY NIGHT

44 GHOSTS

45 RAIN

46 EVENING WORSHIP

47

48

49 TRUCE

50 A PARALLEL

51

52 DISAPPOINTMENT

53 BUDDHA

54

55

56 AT SUNDOWN

57

58

59

60

61 SOUND BUTTERFLIES

(IN A FOUNTAIN)

62

63

64 FAREWELL

(AFTER A HINDUSTANI SONG)

65 SATIETY

66

67 CHATTERTON

68

69 "WHO KNOWS"

70 THE FIRST VISION

71 SHANTI[5]

ERRATA

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE