Spiritual Poetry

Life


LIFE, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall ?

Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly !

What though Death at times steps in
And calls our Best away ?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway ?
Yet hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair !

By: Charlotte Bronte

 

Life


The heavenly breeze comes to this estate,
I sit with the wine and a lovely mate.
Why canÕt the beggar play the kingÕs role?
The sky is the dome, the earth is my state.

The green grass feels like Paradise;
Why would I trade this for the garden gate?
With bricks of wine build towers of love,
Being bricks of clay is our final fate.

Seek no kindness of those full of hate,
People of the mosque with the church debate.
DonÕt badmouth me, donÕt blacken my name;
Only God can, my story narrate.

Neither HafizÕs corps, nor his life negate,
With all his misdeeds, heavens for him wait.

By: Hafiz

 

The Rhodora: On Being Asked, Whence Is the Flower?

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.

-R.W. Emerson

 

Every Child



Every child

comes with the message

that God is not yet discouraged

of man.


By: Rabindranath Tagore

 

Here I am

All night, a man called “Allah”
Until his lips were bleeding.
Then the Devil said, “Hey! Mr Gullible!
How comes you’ve been calling all night
And never once heard Allah say, “Here, I am”?
You call out so earnestly and, in reply, what?
I’ll tell you what. Nothing!”

The man suddenly felt empty and abandoned.
Depressed, he threw himself on the ground
And fell into a deep sleep.
In a dream, he met Abraham, who asked,
“Why are you regretting praising Allah?”

The man said, “ I called and called
But Allah never replied, “Here I am.”
Abraham explained, “Allah has said,
“Your calling my name is My reply.
Your longing for Me is My message to you.
All your attempts to reach Me
Are in reality My attempts to reach you.
Your fear and love are a noose to catch Me.
In the silence surrounding every call of “Allah”
Waits a thousand replies of “Here I am.”

By: Rumi

 

That's a great poem of Rumi's - it contains a very deep subtle message.....

 

Another Day

Another day, another day,
My Lord Supreme is far away.

Another day, my heart can be
The all giving breath of patience tree.

Another day, my life can feed
My soulful world with its crying need.

Another day, I own to hear
God's Voice of Light and feel Him near.

Another day, another day,
My tears shall win His blue gold Ray.

Another day, another day,
And then, no more my ignorance clay.

Another day, I'll be God's Love
Within, without, below, above.


By: Sri Chinmoy

 

My Life

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell

By: Emily Dickinson

 

If They Only Knew

What earth is this
so in want of you
they rise up on high
to seek you in heaven?

Look at them staring
at you
right before their eyes,
unseeing, unseeing, blind.
. . .

I was patient,
but can the heart
be patient of
its heart?

My spirit and yours
blend together
whether we are near one another
or far away.


I am you,
you,
my being,
end of my desire.

The most intimate of secret thoughts
enveloped
and fixed along the horizon
in folds of light.

How? The "how" is known
along the outside,
while the interior of beyond
to and for the heart of being.

Creatures perish
in the darkened
blind of quest,
knowing intimations.

Guessing and dreaming
they pursue the real,
faces turned toward the sky
whispering secrets to the heavens.

While the lord remains among them
in every turn of time
abiding in their every condition
every instant.

Never without him, they,
not for the blink of an eye --
if only they knew!
nor he for a moment without them.

By: Hallaj

 

I Am

I am - yet what I am, none cares or knows:
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes --
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live-like vapours tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteem:
Even the dearest that I love the best
Are strange-nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
there to abide with my creator God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below, above, the vaulted sky.

By: John Clare

 

All men to me are god-like Gods!

All men to me are god-like Gods!
My eyes no longer see
vice or fault.

Life on this suffering earth
is now endless delight;
the heart at rest, full,
overflowing.

In the mirror, the face and its reflection --
they watch each other;
different, but one.

And, when the stream pours into the ocean...
no more stream!

by Tukaram

 

From Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’.



The Prayer of Los.

And Los prayed and said, ‘O Divine Saviour, arise
Upon the mountains of Albion as in ancient time.
Behold!
The cities of Albion seek thy face; London groans in pain
From hill to hill, and the Thames laments along the valleys.
The little villages of Middlesex and Surrey hunger and
Thirst:
The twenty-eight cities of Albion stretch their hands
To Thee,
Because of the oppression of Albion in every city and
Village.
They mock at the labourer’s limbs; they mock at his
Starved children.
They buy his daughters that they may have power to
Sell his sons;
They compel the poor to live upon a crust of bread
By soft mild arts;
They reduce man to want; then give with pomp
And ceremony.
The praise of Jehovah is chaunted from lips of hunger
And thirst.

What shall I do? What could I do, if I could find
these criminals?
I could not dare take vengeance; for all things are
So constructed
And builded by the Divine hand that the sinner shall
Always escape;
And he who takes vengeance alone is the criminal of
Providence.
If I should dare to lay my finger on a grain of sand
In way of vengeance, I punish the already punish’d.
O whom
should I pity if I pity not the poor sinner who is gone
astray?
O Albion, if thou takest vengeance, if thou revengest
thy wrongs,
Thou art for ever lost!
What can I do to hinder the sons
Of Albion from taking vengeance or how shall I them
Persuade?

 

My Burning Heart

My heart is burning with love
All can see this flame
My heart is pulsing with passion
like waves on an ocean

my friends have become strangers
and I'm surrounded by enemies
But I'm free as the wind
no longer hurt by those who reproach me

I'm at home wherever I am
And in the room of lovers
I can see with closed eyes
the beauty that dances

Behind the veils
intoxicated with love
I too dance the rhythm
of this moving world

I have lost my senses
in my world of lovers

-Rumi

 

(38) I want thee, only thee (from Gitanjali)

That I want thee, only thee -- let my heart repeat without end. All desires that distract me, day and night, are false and empty to the core.
As the night keeps hidden in its gloom the petition for light, even thus in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry -- I want thee, only thee.
As the storm still seeks its end in peace when it strikes against peace with all its might, even thus my rebellion strikes against thy love and still its cry is -- I want thee, only thee.

-- by Rabindranath Tagore

 

You alone exist; I do not, O Beloved!

You alone exist; I do not, O Beloved!
You alone exist, I do not!
Like the shadow of a house in ruins,
I revolve in my own mind.
If I speak, you speak with me:
If I am silent, you are in my mind.
If I sleep, you sleep with me:
If I walk, you are along my path.
Oh Bulleh, the spouse has come to my house:
My life is a sacrifice unto Him.
You alone exist; I do not, O Beloved!

by Bulleh Shah

 

Light up the Fire

I gaze into the heart, lowly it may be,
Thought the words be higher still.
For the heart is all the substance,
The speech an accident.
How many phrases will you speak,
Too many for me.
How much burning, burning will you feel,
Be friendly with the fire, enough for me.
Light up the fire of love inside,
And blaze the thoughts away.

By: Rumi

 

Revelation


Someone leaping from the rocks
Past me ran with wind-blown locks
Like a startled bright surmise
Visible to mortal eyes, --
Just a cheek of frightened rose
That with sudden beauty glows,
Just a footstep like the wind
And a hurried glance behind.
And then nothing, -- as a thought
Escapes the mind ere it is caught.
Someone of the heavenly rout
From behind the veil ran out.

By: Sri Aurobindo

 

When I go Alone at Night

When I go alone at night to my love-tryst, birds do not sing, the wind does not stir, the houses on both sides of the street stand silent.
It is my own anklets that grow loud at every step and I am ashamed.

When I sit on my balcony and listen for his footsteps, leaves do not rustle on the trees, and the water is still in the river like the sword on the knees of a sentry fallen asleep.
It is my own heart that beats wildly -- I do not know how to quiet it.

When my love comes and sits by my side, when my body trembles and my eyelids droop, the night darkens, the wind blows out the lamp, and the clouds draw veils over the stars.
It is the jewel at my own breast that shines and gives light. I do not know how to hide it.

Originally from: The Gardener (1913)

by: Rabindranath Tagore

 

I Wonder if I Know Him

I wonder if I know him
In whose speech is my voice,
In whose movement is my being,
Whose skill is in my lines,
Whose melody is in my songs
In joy and sorrow.
I thought he was chained within me,
Contained by tears and laughter,
Work and play.
I thought he was my very self
Coming to an end with my death.
Why then in a flood of joy do I feel him
In the sight and touch of my beloved?
This I beyond self I found
On the shores of the shining sea.
Therefore I know
This'I' is not imprisoned within my bounds.
Losing myself, I find him
Beyond the borders of time and space.
Through the Ages
I come to know his Shining Self
In the Iffe of the seeker,
In the voice of the poet.
From the dark clouds pour the rains.
I sit and think:
Bearing so many forms, so many names,
I come down, crossing the threshold
Of countless births and deaths.
The Supreme undivided, complete in himself,
Embracing past and present,
Dwells in Man.
Within Him I shall find myself -
The I that reaches everywhere.

- Rabindranath Tagore

 

The Lily


The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble sheep a threat'ning horn:
While the Lily white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.

By: William Blake