The Bliss of Brahman

I am swallowed in a foam-white sea of bliss,
I am a curving wave of God’s delight,
A shapeless flow of happy passionate light,
A whirlpool of the streams of Paradise.
I am a cup of His felicities,
A thunderblast of His golden ecstasy’s might,
A fire of joy upon creation’s height;
I am His rapture’s wonderful abyss.

I am drunken with the glory of the Lord,
I am vanquished by the beauty of the Unborn;
I have looked alive on the Eternal’s face.
My mind is cloven by His radiant sword,
My heart by His beatific touch is torn,
My life is a meteor-dust of His flaming Grace.

Notes on Text
29 September 1939, revised 21 October. Five handwritten manuscripts; the first has the epigraph: “He who has found the bliss of the Brahman, has no fear from any quarter./ Upanishad [Taittiriya Upanishad 2.4]”.