Songs of the Soul/Part 2/Nature's Nature

by Swami Yogananda

Layout 2

 

NATURE’S NATURE

Away, ye muses, all away,
Away with songs of finch and fay,
Away the jaundiced sight
That conflagrates the firefly’s light
To bonfire,—
That sets ablaze at once
Your musing’s burning lamps;
That ornaments with rhymes
The penury-stricken looks betimes;
That over-clothes the Logic lord
With fancy-swollen words.
Away, the partial love
That ’boldens nature to sit above
Her Maker!

This day I fasten eye-lid doors,
With absence wax my ears,
With langour all congeal my tongue, my touch,
 my tears,
That I myself may pore
  Upon the things behind, ahead
  Of the darkness ’round me spread.
  I lock Dame Nature out
  With all her fickle rout:
  Somewhere here
  In the darkness drear
  I myself with cheer
  My course will steer
In the path
E’er sought by all:
Its magnet-call
I hear.

Not here, not here
Apollo would his burning chariot steer;
Nor Dian dares to peep
Into the sacred silence deep.

Not here, not here
The mounts nor rebel waves, nor far or near,
Can make me full of fear, nor evermore
Their dreadful grandeur adore.
[continued]

Not here, not here
The soft capricious wiles of flowers,
Nor swarming storm clouds’ sweeping terror,
Nor doomsday’s thunder drear
Dismantling earth and stars,
The cosmic beauties all to mar;
  Dishevelling of trees
  And light-haired skies,
  Nor nature’s murderous mutiny
  Nor man’s all-powerful destiny
  Can touch me here.

  Not here, not here—
  Through mind’s strong iron bars
  No gods nor goblins, no men nor nature
  Without my pass dare enter.
  I look behind, ahead,
  And on naught but darkness tread.
  In wrath I strike, and set it ablaze
  With the immortal spark of thought,
  By the friction process brought

  Of concentration
  And distraction;—
  The darkness burns
  With a million tongues,
  And now I spy
  All past, all distant things as nigh.

I smile serene
As I expose to gaze
In wisdom’s brilliant blaze
All charms of the Hidden Home Unseen:
The Home of Nature’s birth,
The planets’ moulding hearth,
The factory whence all forms or fairies start,
The bards, colossal minds and hearts,
The gods and all,
And all, and all!

Away, Away
With all the lightsome lays;—
Oh, I’ll now portray
In humble way,

And try to lisp half-truths
Of wordless charms of Thee Unseen
To whom Nature her nature owes, and sheen.