Shiva in ecstasy
(Translated from a Bengali song)
Shiva is dancing, lost in the ecstasy of Self, sounding his
own cheeks.
His tabor is playing and the garland of skulls is swinging
in rhythm.
The waters of the Ganga are roaring among his matted
locks.
The great trident is vomiting fire, and the moon on his
forehead is fiercely flaming.
Requiescat in pace !
One day in June 1898, shortly after Swami Vivekananda’s disciple J. J. Goodwin died, the Swami carried off a few lines of Sister Nivedita’s writing, and brought back this poem, which was sent to the widowed mother, as his memorial of her son.
Quest for God
O’ver hill and dale and mountain range,
In temple, church, and mosque,
In Vedas, Bible, Al Koran
I had searched for Thee in vain.
Poems to Mary Hale and her responses
Subsequent to a disagreement (by correspondence) between Swami Vivekananda and his friend, Mary Hale regarding the Swami’s attitude toward his detractors (Seeletter to Mary Hale, February 1, 1895) the Swami mailed the following poem to her on February 15, 1895).
Now Sister Mary,
You need not be sorry
For the hard raps I gave you,
You know full well,
Though you like me tell,
With my whole heart I love you.
Peace
Composed at Ridgely Manor, New York, 1899.
Dedicated to Mrs. Ole Bull “with eternal love.”
One Circle More
[A fragmentary poem composed at Ridgely Manor, in 1899]
Swamiji wrote the poem “One Circle More” on Ridgely Manor stationery. The original was sent to Swami Prabhavananda by Frances H. Leggett in 1962 It would appear that the three lines Swamiji wrote on the left-hand side of the sheet, which was actually the back of the folded letter paper constituted his final version of the first verse.
On the Sea’s Bosom
In blue sky floats a multitude of clouds —
White, black, of many shades and thicknesses;
An orange sun, about to say farewell,
Touches the massed cloud-shapes with streaks of red.
Of Gouri and Shankar in a single form *
(Free translation by Swami Vivekananda)
( * This poem was not published in the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda)
No one to blame
The sun goes down, its crimson rays
Light up the dying day;
A startled glance I throw behind
And count my triumph shame;
No one but me to blame.
Each day my life I make or mar,
Each deed begets its kind,
Good good, bad bad, the tide once set
No one can stop or stem;
No one but me to blame.
I am my own embodied past;
Therein the plan was made;
The will, the thought, to that conform,
To that the outer frame;
No one but me to blame.
Love comes reflected back as love,
Hate breeds more fierce hate,
They mete their measures, lay on me
Through life and death their claim;
No one but me to blame.
I cast off fear and vain remorse,
I feel my Karma’s sway
I face the ghosts my deeds have raised —
Joy, sorrow, censure, fame;
No one but me to blame.
Good, bad, love, hate, and pleasure, pain
Forever linked go,
I dream of pleasure without pain,
It never, never came;
No one but me to blame.
I give up hate, I give up love,
My thirst for life is gone;
Eternal death is what I want,
Nirvanam goes life’s flame;
No one is left to blame.
One only man, one only God, one ever perfect soul,
One only sage who ever scorned the dark and dubious ways,
One only man who dared think and dared show the goal — That death is curse, and so is life, and best when stops to be.
Om Nama Bhagavate Sambuddhâya
Om, I salute the Lord, the awakened.
My Play is Done
– Swami Vivekananda
(“My Play is Done” was composed on 16th March 1895 when he was in New York.)