The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

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 Iam 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? Il 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, 275