The Joy of Life, pp.194-195

Opening remarks
Life carries in its core the delight that built the worlds. It runs as a sap of existence and is felt in all its activities and seeking.

Ecstasy’s fire
Yet is it joy to live and to create
And joy to love and labour though all fails,
And joy to seek though all we find deceives
And all on which we lean betrays our trust;
Yet something in its depths was worth the pain,
A passionate memory haunts with ecstasy’s fire.

Despite the struggle and the pan, life persists through the Ages in its timeless toil due to the joy inbuilt within its core. In every activity and motion there is a joy and a will-to-live. Even when everything falls and fails and our efforts are frustrated and our love betrayed, life returns with renewed hope searching for the lost delight out of which it has emerged.

Nothing is truly vain
Even grief has joy hidden beneath its roots:
For nothing is truly vain the One has made:
In our defeated hearts God’s strength survives
And victory’s star still lights our desperate road;
Our death is made a passage to new worlds.

Grief, failure, defeat are not permanent but a passage towards a future victory. They are a learning experience and when the experience is over and ends in failure still the lesson and the strength of God to try again persists within us. The very death of the body is a means for our soul to return in a new form and resume its effort and its half-finished journey.

Anthem swell
This to Life’s music gives its anthem swell.

This joy is the master song of life, the common refrain, that returns and increases in a crescendo every time.

Glory of her voice
To all she lends the glory of her voice;
Heaven’s raptures whisper to her heart and pass,
Earth’s transient yearnings cry from her lips and fade.

For a moment all is lit up with the joy of life and its cry of rapture. But all her joys are limited and transient. They touch the heart awhile and pass. Earth yearns for passing things that soon fade away.

God-given hymn
Alone the God-given hymn escapes her art
That came with her from her spiritual home
But stopped half-way and failed, a silent word
Awake in some deep pause of waiting worlds,
A murmur suspended in eternity’s hush:
But no breath comes from the supernal peace:
A sumptuous interlude occupies the ear
And the heart listens and the soul consents;
An evanescent music it repeats
Wasting on transience Time’s eternity.

What is however missing here is the perfect rhythm, the Divine Harmony that life seeks. It’s cry is unable to reach those sublime heights or draw a response from there. It searches and finds something but not the true thing that alone can bring peace to her restless heart. It is only in some rare pauses whence life turns within to hear the voice of its soul within but soon it is lost amidst the many murmurs, as a wasted gift of eternity showered on time-born things..

High intended theme
A tremolo of the voices of the hours
Oblivious screens the high intended theme
The self-embodying spirit came to play
On the vast clavichord of Nature-Force.

The high theme of the Divine musician is screened by the overtones and undertones of life. It is this divine music that Life came to play through the instruments of Nature.

A mighty murmur here and there
Only a mighty murmur here and there
Of the eternal Word, the blissful Voice
Or Beauty’s touch transfiguring heart and sense,
A wandering splendour and a mystic cry,
Recalls the strength and sweetness heard no more.

Rare are the moments when some high note breaks through the screen bringing some touch of the eternal Word and the blissful voice. Rare are her moments when Beauty remoulds the heart and sense. The mystic cry of life seems like a wandering splendour recalling her lost strength and sweetness.

Closing Remarks
It is this divine music lost to life’s ears and screened from her inner hearing that Life is seeking. Her cry is like a mystic hymn raised on the world-altar to bring down this divine note that can be heard no more amidst the many noises and voices that play on nature’s instruments.