Saturday, July 26, 2014


And this that forever shall spur us and lead us from peak unto peak on the way
Till body and spirit be welded in one and the long Night fall on the Day,
And all the sonorous music of time, the hills and the woods and the wind and the sea,
The one great song of the whole creation, of all that is and that yet shall be,
Chanted aloud as a paean of joy by the Being whose home is the vast
Shall tremble away in silence, and all be gone at the last,
Save only afar in the Heart of the Singer of whom it was chanted and heard
Remembrance left of the music as a sunset-fire in the west,
Remembrance left of the mighty Enchanted Palace that rose at His Word,
This, and a joy everlasting, an immense inviolate rest.

-- Clifford Bax
(in Poetry of the Spirit, edited by Alan Jacobs)

Saturday, July 19, 2014

And this is the meaning of man,
   The task of the soul,
The labour of world, and the plan
   That is set for the whole.
For the spark of the spirit imprisoned within it,
   In all things one and the same,
Aeon by aeon and minute by minute,
   Is longing to leap into flame,
To shatter the limits of life and be lost in a glory intense and profound
As the soul with a cry goes out into music and seeks to be one with the sound.

-- Clifford Bax
(in Poetry of the Spirit, edited by Alan Jacobs)

Saturday, July 12, 2014


To whom shall I send my hymn of praise --
This yearning of my heart?
It seeks voice to give value
To that which is beyond all value --
But it remains silent.
It only says:  'I am happy.'
The rhythm comes to a stop,
But its cadence says:  'I am blest.'

-- Rabindranath Tagore
(in Poetry of the Spirit, edited by Alan Jacobs)

Saturday, July 5, 2014


O Thou Poet, great and primal, in the rhythm of Thy thought
The sun and moon arise and move toward their setting;
The stars, shining like bits of gems, are the fair characters
In which Thy song is written across the blue expanse of sky.

-- Ramakrishna (trans. S. Nikhilananda)
(in Poetry of the Spirit, edited by Alan Jacobs)