Saturday, September 24, 2011


O Friend! this body is His lyre;
He tightens its strings,
and draws from it
the melody of Brahma.
If the strings snap and the keys slacken,
then to dust must this instrument of dust return.
. . . . None but Brahma can evoke its melodies.

-- Kabir
(Songs of Kabir,
edited by R. Tagore and E. Underhill)

Saturday, September 17, 2011


And if sad the music is,
It is sad with mysteries
Of a small immortal thing
That the passing ages sing --
Simple music making mirth
Of the dying and the birth
Of the people of the earth.

-- Alice Meynell
(in The Things That Matter,
edited by Julie Neuberger)

Saturday, September 10, 2011


In this music there was a feeling as of time frozen into space, and above it there quivered a never-ending and superhuman serenity, an eternal, divine laughter.

-- Hermann Hesse
(Steppenwolf,
translated by B. Creighton,
revised by J. Mileck and H. Frenz)

Saturday, September 3, 2011


Drumsound rises on the air,
its throb, my heart.

A voice inside the beat says,
"I know you're tired,
but come. This is the way."

-- Rumi
(The Essential Rumi,
translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne)