Short Poems

Even an impious hand can Truth's omnipotence order:
But the measure to fill Beauty availeth alone.

Lacking a sense of the fine, ye can always cultivate reason;
What to the man is a blank, imagination achieves.

If thou anything hast, why, let me purchase an item;
If thou anything art, let us effect an exchange.

Fashion has degrees in the world: contemptible natures
Reckon on what they do; noble assert what they are.

Do what is good, and man thou teachest all that is holy;
Picture the fair, and so sprinkle the heavenly seed.

In the organic, sensitive world no novelty rises,
Save where flowers bloom—highest achievement of earth.

Many there are who toil, each one to prosper his species;
But it is given to few only to multiply man.
Many a seed is sown, but few bear fruit at the harvest,
For the majority still close in their elements hide.
But let one expand—'twill nurture a bountiful outcome,
Filling a living world with the creations of aye.

What the Deity taught, which all my life has assisted,
Here I gratefully hang in his immaculate fane.

The days have passed, the praises left unsung.
Childhood was lost in playing: the time of youth practised pride.

For lucre's sake the capital was spent: even now the mind's thirst remains unquenched.
Kabír says, Hear, O brother Sádhus: only the saintly souls have reached the shore.

Single it is thy lot to be—not part of a total—
Reason plants thee alone, and acquiesces the heart.
Thou and thy heart are one, thy reason is only a fragment.
Fortunate thou if for aye reason abide in thine heart.