Famous souls

Vesper Hymn

Now, on sea and land descending,

Brings the night its peace profound: hymn

Let our vesper hymn be blending With the holy calm around.

Soon as dies the sunset glory, Stars of heaven shine out above,

Telling still the ancient story— Their Creator’s changeless love.

Now, our wants and burdens leaving To his care who cares for all,

Cease we fearing, cease we grieving; At his touch our burdens fall.

As the darkness deepens o’er us, Lo! eternal stars arise;

Hope and Faith and Love rise glorious, Shining in the Spirit’s skies.

Gita

From the Bhagavata Gita : Gita

“Then, filled with wonder, with hairs standing on end, he, Dhananjaya, (Arjuna), bowing down with his head to the Lord, said with folded hands.

Arjuna said: O God, I see in Your body all the gods as also hosts of (various) classes of beings; Brahma the ruler, sitting on a lotus seat, and all the heavenly sages and serpents.

I see You as possessed of numerous arms, bellies, mouths and eyes; as having infinite forms all around. O Lord of the Universe, O Cosmic Person, I see not Your limit nor the middle, nor again the beginning!

I see You as wearing a crown, wielding a mace, and holding a disc; a mass of brilliance glowing all around, difficult to look at from all sides, possessed of the radiance of the blazing fire, and immeasurable as the sun.

You are the Immutable, the supreme One to be known; You are the most perfect repository of this Universe. You are the Imperishable, the Protector of the ever-existing religion; You are the eternal Person. This is my belief.

I see You as without beginning, middle and end, possessed of infinite valour, having innumerable arms, having the sun and the moon as eyes, having a mouth like a blazing fire, and heating up this Universe by Your own brilliance.

Those very groups of gods enter into You; struck with fear, some extol (You) with joined palms. Groups of great sages and perfected beings praise You with elaborate hymns, saying ‘May it be!’” – Chapter 11, Bhagavada Gita.

Scene from the Bhagavada Gita as Krishna, the charioteer shows his god-form to the archer hero Arjuna at the field of battle.

The Bhagavada Gita is one of the holy books of the Hindu pantheon in India. And this painting and poetry are a scene from the epic battle Mahabharata as Krishna takes on his all powerful form, known as Virat Swaroop.

Elemental seed

“And as the seed waits eagerly watching for its flower and fruit. Seed

Anxious its little soul looks out into the clear expanse

To see if hungry winds are abroad with their invisible array ;

So Man looks out in tree, and herb, and fish, and bird, and beast.

Collecting up the scattered portions of his immortal body.

Into the elemental forms of everything that grows.

He tries the sullen North wind, riding on its angry furrows,

The sultry South when the sun rises, and the angry East,

When the sun sets, and the clods harden, and the cattle stand,

Drooping, and the birds hide in their silent nests.

He stores his thoughts.

As in store-houses in his memory. He regulates the forms.

Of all beneath and all above, and in the gentle West Reposes where the sun’s heat dwells.

He rises to the sun,

And to the planets of the night, and to the stars that gild.

The zodiacs, and the stars that sullen stand to North and South,

He touches the remotest pole, and in the centre weeps That Man should labour and sorrow, and learn and forget, and return.

To the dark valley whence he came, and begin his

labours anew.”

Picasso

Picasso Artwork : Self-potrait by Pablo Picasso.

“How like an Angel came I down! How bright are all things here!

When first among His works I did appear,

O how their Glory me did crown!

The world resembled his Eternity, In which my soul did walk;

And every thing that I did see Did with me talk.

The skies in their magnificence, The lively, lovely air,

Oh how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair!

The stars did entertain my sense,

And all the works of God, so bright and pure,

So rich and great did seem,

As if they ever must endure In my esteem.”

Adonis

– Words from Adonis, the Syrian poet (born Ali Ahmad Said Esber).

Adonis

“So that your body moves wisely so that I move with it

with what is above it below it.
and in between

so that I surround you and break any barrier that separates you from me.

I read the book of your priests

I grow into your origins.

I taste their creatures and personify them in my delusions so that you become the dot,

and I become the script and shape.
so that you become ‘From’ and what follows it .

I am not your sea
I am not the swans you wait for I have nothing but limbs.

Limbs that get lost.

After
I erased-discovered you,

lost in a fever whose outer reaches I have yet to discover.

‘About’ and what it possesses,
where words cannot contain me,

where only imaginings and symbols can contain me.”

Crystal Spears

Ring out ye Crystal spears, crystal

Once bless our human ears,

(If ye have power to touch our senses so)

And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;

And let the Base of Heav’ns deep Organ blow,

And with your ninefold harmony.
Make up full consort to th’ Angelike symphony.

For if such holy Song Enwrap our fancy long,

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold.

Ambassador of Bliss

This soaring, sacred thirst, Ambassador of bliss, approached first.

bliss Making a place in me
That made me apt to prize, and taste, and see.

For not the objects, but the sense Of things doth bliss to Souls dispense,

And make it, Lord, like Thee.
Sense, feeling, taste, complacency, and sight,

These are the true and real joys,

The living, flowing inward, melting, bright, And Heavenly pleasures; all the rest are toys:

All which are founded in Desire, As light in flame and heat in fire.

Awake

Awake “Awake, Æolian lyre, awake,

And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.

From Helicon’s harmonious springs A thousand rills their mazy progress take:

The laughing flowers, that round them blow,

Drink life and fragrance as they flow.

Now the rich stream of music winds along

Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,

Thro’ verdant vales, and Ceres’ golden reign:

Now rolling down the steep amain, Headlong, impetuous, see it pour:

The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar.”

The progress of Poesy – A pindaric ode from yore.

Vernal morning

“O! hast thou seen a vernal Morning bright.   vernal

Gem every bank and trembling leaf with dews,

Tinging the green fields with her amber hues,

Changing the leaden streams to lines of light?

Then seen dull Clouds, that shed untimely night,

Roll envious on, and every ray suffuse,

Till the chill’d Scenes their early beauty lose,

And faint, and colourless, no more invite.

The glistening gaze of Joy?—’Twas emblem just,

Of my youth’s sun, on which deep shadows fell,

Spread from the PALL OF FRIENDS; and Grief’s loud gust,

Resistless, oft wou’d wasted tears compel:

Yet let me hope, that on my darken’d days,

Science, and pious Trust, may shed pervading rays.” – Horace.

Tyger Tyger

“Tyger Tyger, burning bright, Tyger

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat.

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp.

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears

And water’d heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”

– From the Illuminated Manuscript by William Blake.

Banner of heaven

‘gagan math gaib nisân gade’ – Kabir.

– ‘The Hidden Banner is planted in the temple of the sky; there the blue canopy decked with the moon and set with bright jewels is spread.

There the light of the sun and the moon is shining: still your mind to silence before that splendour. Kabîr says: “He who has drunk of this nectar, wanders like one who is mad. ‘

– Rabindranath Tagore from book ‘Songs of Kabir.