Alok Pandey

In this dense field where nothing is plain or sure, Our very being seems to us questionable, Our life a vague experiment, the soul A flickering light in a strange ignorant world,

Only sometimes a holier influence comes, A tide of mightier surgings bears our lives And a diviner Presence moves the soul;

And sometimes, when our sight is turned within, Earth's ignorant veil is lifted from our eyes; There is a short miraculous escape.

ON A height he stood that looked towards greater heights. Our early approaches to the Infinite Are sunrise splendours on a marvellous verge While lingers yet unseen the glorious sun.

A glory and a rapture and a charm, The All-Blissful sat unknown within the heart; Earth's pains were the ransom of its prisoned delight.

There looked out from the shadow of the Unknown The bodiless Namelessness that saw God born And tries to gain from the mortal's mind and soul A deathless body and a divine name.

In a brief moment caught, a little space, All-Knowledge packed into great wordless thoughts Lodged in the expectant stillness of his depths A crystal of the ultimate Absolute,

A happier cosmic working could begin And fashion the world-shape in him anew, God found in Nature, Nature fulfilled in God.

To the still heights and to the troubled depths His equal spirit gave its vast assent: A poised serenity of tranquil strength, A wide unshaken look on Time's unrest Faced all experience with unaltered peace.