Short Poems

This knowledge fills my soul with fears,
Doubt of that day spread within me: of its nature naught is known.
None can aid another then, wife nor brother, father nor mother.
All are misled beholding this illusion, nothing is stable, all passes away.
Born as a man, yet without understanding, whom can one call tranquil?
O Lord bring Jagjivan to safety all lies in Thy hands alone.

Now, even now, O Lord, forgive me.
Forgive my sins, destroy all doubts, and keep me close beside Thee.
Seat me beneath the tree that thou hast fashioned, where there is neither sun nor shade.
Where is neither moon nor sun, nor day nor wind, nor eve nor morning.
Give me to taste immortal fruit, a bed perfumed with fragrance.
From age to age give me the state changeless unending: this is my request of Thee.
Life's feverish ills no drug can banish: let heir and family be all removed.

Soul parted from thy Love, kindle a lamp within the shrine.

There is no wick, nor lamp, nor oil, yet shall there be light, I know not how.
The Lord of my soul to my house has come: let my bed be decked with coverings rare.

In the bed of my heart with bliss transported the Eternal Essence rested, my Lord transcendant, without form.
Come and with one heart sing the joyful bridal song: for Yari has met his Love.

O Dharni, offer ceaseless Arti to the Lord.
When thou risest, sittest, sleepest, night and day, at eve and at dawn.
Join thy hands at evening time and for two hours sing his praise.
O Dharni Das, with mind composed bow down thy head with the Guru's worshippers.

Endowed with soul and body, happiness and riches, why did you not find love in the midst of these?
What doest thou? What was thy promise at thy coming? Why hast thou left it to pursue another aim?
Practice Joga, renunciation and the recluse life, O Dharni: why wear yourself to death in pursuit of riches?
At the last all these will desert thee: why not, O fool, desert them now?

When shall I attain that state?
When by the mercy of Raghunath the Merciful I shall grasp the nature of the Sants within me.
Whatever be my fortune, therewith shall I be content: to no one will I make complaint.
To the good of others will I devote my thoughts and deeds and keep faithful to my promise and my principles.
Harsh words intolerable to mine own ears—I shall not burn in the wrath that prompts them.
Equable and calm and balanced, I will not see in other's actions good or ill.

Clad in blue silk and bright embroidery
At the first call of Spring the fair young bride,
On whom as yet Sorrow has laid no scar,
Climbs the Kingfisher's Tower. Suddenly
She sees the bloom of willows far and wide,
And grieves for him she lent to fame and war.

O Hari, long indeed have I waited.
As Thou hast saved all other sinners, write. Thou my name with theirs.
From age to age Thy promise has come true: therefore do I cry aloud.
Tis this shame slays me: in the multitude of the sinners wherein am I less vile than they?
Now own defeat and yield: or else fulfil. Thy promise.
If Sur the sinner speaks falsehood, open the book and see.

Long have I not seen you, Li.
Poor man, for your feigned madness
The world would have you die.
But my heart dotes on your gifted soul
For the thousand poems of your nimble wit,
For the one wine-cup—your penury's balm.
So to your old place of reading in Mount Kuang
Come back, O white-headed one! It is time.

Westward from Tung-ting the Chu River branches out,
While the lake fades into the cloudless sky of the south.
The sun gone down, the autumn twilight steals afar over Chang-sha.
I wonder where sleep the lost queens of Hsiang of old.