Part IV — World-poets
World-poets
"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease
And builds a heaven in hell's despair.
— Blake
Love so beautifully idealised can be materialised if it springs from its Highest Source and has no link with anything inferior here below.
"I was angry with my friend.
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
— Blake
Wrath is a weakness worth getting over. Again it cannot disturb the inner equilibrium, which is worth everything.
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"Good to forgive. Best to forget."
— Browning
Better than best is to remain unaffected by the shocks of the world.
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"Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell
The torture of that inward hell!"
— Byron
To nurse an inward hell and escape the penalty is to ask for too much.
"I awoke one morning and found myself famous."
— Byron
All the greater glory to the Source which has given the fame!
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"We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves."
— Goethe
May the world realise this truth!
"Light" — more light.
— Goethe
Infinite is the thirst for the Infinite.
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"A thing of beauty is a joy forever."
— Keats
Because it is the reflection of the All-Beautiful.
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty."
— Keats
Because our great origin is both Truth and Beauty.
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"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done."
— Longfellow
Hence says the Seer-Poet:
"And belief shall not be till the thing is done."
— Sri Aurobindo, Savitri
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream.
— Longfellow
Rather, life, the great gift of God, is a splendid field for self-realisation.
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"Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven."
— Milton
That is the sign of a great spirit perverted.
"To be weak is miserable, doing or suffering."
— Milton
Weakness is an implied denial of one's true self.
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"What is done can't be undone."
— Shakespeare
True in a limited context, never an absolute truth.
"Brevity is the soul of wit."
— Shakespeare
And silence can tell even more than brevity.
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"Our sweetest songs are those that tell us of sweetest thought."
— Shelley
The Shelleys of the future will hear sweetest songs inspired by all-blissful thoughts.
"The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.
— Shelley
Our Shelleys of the New Age will be singing of the transformation of the sphere of our sorrow into the sphere of our Delight!
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"My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
— Tennyson
Let us look forward to the New World that is manifesting in the old — to the New World that will be full of Sir Galahads but with their hearts absolutely true to none and nothing else than the Divine and His Influence.
"'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
— Tennyson
True, perhaps on the human plane. But true love is Love divine that knows no loss.
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"I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion's sake."
— Whitman
The true seer-eye of the poet foresaw the possibility that is now on the point of realising itself.
"If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred."
— Whitman
Because the human body is the very temple of God.
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"Minds that have nothing to confer find little to receive."
— Wordsworth
And it may well be added: Minds that have little to perceive have nothing to confer.
"The gods approve the depth, and not the tumult of the soul."
— Wordsworth
As a portion of the Infinite, the soul can have depth, height and breadth without measure, but tumult can never belong to the soul. It is a play of the inferior vital.
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