91 
 
 
 
 
 
THE MANTRA-YOGI 
 
I 
 
HOW should I seek to make a song for thee 
 When all my music is to moan thy name ?   
 That long sad monotone—the same—the same— 
Matching the mute insatiable sea 
That throbs with life’s bewitching agony, 
 Too long to measure and too fierce to tame. 
 An hurtful joy, a fascinating shame 
Is this great ache that grips the heart of me. 
 
Even as a cancer, so this passion gnaws 
Away my soul, and will not ease its jaws 
 Till I am dead.  Then let me die !  Who knows 
But that this corpse committed to the earth 
May be the occasion of some happier birth ?   
 Spring’s earliest snowdrop ?  Summer’s latest rose ?   
 
II 
 
Thou knowest what asp hath fixed its lethal tooth 
 In the white breast that trembled like a flower 
 At thy name whispered.  Thou hast marked how hour 
By hour its poison hath dissolved my youth,