THE CHILD
( I )
What of the night?’ they ask.
No answer comes.
For the blind Time gropes in a maze and knows not its path or purpose.
The darkness in the valley stares like the dead
eye-sockets of a giant,
the clouds like a nightmare oppress the sky,
and the massive shadows lie scattered like the torn
limbs of the night.
A lurid glow waxes and wanes on the horizon, —
is it an ultimate threat from an alien star,
or an elemental
hunger licking the sky?
Things are deliriously wild,
they are a noise whose grammar is a groan,
and words smothered
out of shape and sense.
They are the refuse,
the rejections, the fruitless failures
of life,
abrupt ruins of prodigal
pride, —
fragments of a
bridge over the oblivion of a vanished
stream,
godless shrines that shelter reptiles,
marble steps that lead to blankness.
Sudden tumults rise in the sky and wrestle
and a startled shudder
runs along the sleepless
hours.
Are
they from desperate floods
hammering against their cave walls,
or from some fanatic storms
whirling and howling incantations?
Are they the cry of an ancient forest
flinging
up its hoarded fire in a last extravagant
suicide,
or
screams of a paralytic crowd scourged by lunatics
blind and deaf?
Underneath
the noisy terror a stealthy hum creeps up
like bubbling
volcanic mud,
a mixture of sinister whispers, rumours and
slanders,
and hisses of derision.
The
men gathered there are vague like torn pages
of an epic.
Groping
in groups or single, their torchlight tattoos
their faces in chequered lines, in patterns of
frightfulness.
The maniacs suddenly strike their neighbours on
suspicion
and a hubbub of an indiscriminate fight bursts forth
echoing from hill to hill.
The women weep and wail,
they cry that their children are lost in a wilderness
of contrary paths with confusion at the end.
Others defiantly ribald shake with raucous laughter
their lascivious limbs unshrinkingly loud,
for they think that nothing matters.
(II)
There on the crest of the hill
stands the Man of faith amid the snow-white silence,
He scans the sky for some signal of light,
and when the clouds
thicken and the nightbirds
scream
as they fly,
he cries, ‘Brothers, despair not, for Man is great.’
But they never heed him,
for they believe that the elemental
brute is eternal
and goodness in its depth
is darkly cunning in
deception.
When beaten and wounded they cry, ' Brother, where
art thou?’
The answer
comes, ‘ I am by your side.
—
But they cannot see in the dark
and they argue that the
voice is of their own
desperate desire,
that men are ever condemned to fight for phantoms
in an interminable desert of mutual
menace.
(III)
The clouds part, the morning
star appears in the East, a breath
of relief springs
up from the heart of the
earth,
the murmur of leaves ripples along the forest path,
and the early bird sings.
’ The time has come,’ proclaims the Man of faith.
‘ The time for what?’
‘ For the pilgrimage.’
They sit and think, they know
not the meaning,
and yet they seem to understand according
to their
desires.
The touch of the dawn goes deep
into the soil
and life shivers along through
the root of all
things.
’ To the pilgrimage
of fulfilment,’ a small voice
whispers, nobody knows whence.
Taken up by the crowd
it swells into a mighty meaning.
Men raise their heads and look up,
women lilt their arms in reverence,
children clap their hands and laugh.
The early glow of the sun shines like a golden
garland
on the forehead of the Man of faith,
and they all cry: ‘Brother, we salute thee!’
( IV )
Men begin to gather from all quarters,
from across the seas,
the mountains and pathless
wastes,
They come from the valley of the Nile and the banks
of the Ganges,
from the snow-sunk uplands of
Thibet,
from high-walled cities of glittering towers,
from the dense dark tangle of savage wilderness.
Some walk, some ride on camels, horses and elephants,
on chariots with banners vieing with the clouds
of dawn,
The priests of all creeds burn incense, chanting
verses
as they go.
The
monarchs march at the head of
their armies, lances flashing in the sun and drums beating loud.
Ragged beggars and courtiers pompously decorated,
agile young scholars and teachers burdened
with
learned age jostle each other in the crowd.
Women come chatting and laughing,
mothers,
maidens and brides,
with offerings of flowers and fruit,
sandal paste and scented water.
Mingled with them is the harlot,
shrill of voice and loud in tint and tinsel.
The gossip is there who secretly
poisons the well
of human sympathy and chuckles.
The maimed and the cripple join the throng with the
blind and the sick,
the
dissolute, the thief and the man who
makes a
trade of his God for profit and mimics the
saint.
’The fulfilment! ’
They dare not talk aloud,
but in
their minds, they magnify their own greed,
and dream of boundless
power,
of unlimited impunity for
pilfering and plunder,
and eternity
of feast for their unclean gluttonous
flesh.
( V )
The Man of faith moves on along pitiless
paths strewn with flints over
scorching sands and steep
mountainous tracks.
They
follow him, the strong and the weak, the aged
and young,
the rulers of realms,
the tillers of the soil.
Some
grow weary and footsore, some angry and
suspicious.
They ask at every dragging
step,
’ How
much further is the end?
The Man of faith sings in answer;
they
scowl and shake their fists and yet they cannot
resist him;
the pressure of the moving mass and
indefinite
hope push them forward.
They shorten their sleep and curtail their rest,
they out-vie each other in their
speed,
they are ever afraid lest they may be too late for their
chance
while others be more fortunate.
The days pass,
the ever-receding horizon tempts them with renewed
lure of the unseen till they are sick.
Their faces harden,
their curses grow louder and
louder.
(VI)
It is night.
The travellers spread their mat on the ground
under the banyan
tree.
A gust of wind blows out the lamp
and the darkness
deepens like a sleep into a swoon.
Someone from the crowd suddenly
stands up
and pointing to the leader with merciless finger
breaks out:
’False prophet, thou hast deceived us!’
Others take up the cry one by one,
women hiss their hatred and men growl.
At last one bolder
than others suddenly
deals him a
blow.
They cannot see his
face, but fall upon him in
a fury
of destruction
and hit him till he
lies prone upon the ground his
life extinct.
The night is still, the sound of the distant waterfall
comes muffled,
and a faint breath
of jasmine floats in the air
(VII)
The pilgrims are afraid.
The women begin to cry, the men in an agony of wretchedness
shout at them to stop.
Dogs break out barking and are cruelly whipped
into
silence broken by moans.
The night seems endless,
and men and women begin to
wrangle as to who among them was to blame.
They shriek and shout and as they are ready
to unsheathe
their knives
the darkness pales, the morning light
overflows
the mountain
tops.
Suddenly they become
still and gasp for breath as they
gaze at the figure lying dead.
The women sob out loud and men hide their faces in
their hands.
A few try to slink away unnoticed,
but their crime keeps them chained
to their victim.
They ask each other in bewilderment,
‘Who will show
us the path?’
The old man from the East bends his head and says:
‘The Victim.
’ They sit still and silent.
Again speaks the old man,
We refused him in doubt, we
killed him in anger,
now we shall accept him in love,
for in his death, he lives
in the life of us all, the
great Victim.’
And they all stand up and mingle their voices and sing,
‘Victory to the Victim.’
( VIII )
‘To the pilgrimage' calls the young,
‘to love, to power, to knowledge, to wealth overflowing,’
‘We shall conquer
the world and the world beyond
this,’
they all cry exultant in a thundering cataract of
voices,
The meaning is not the same
to them all, but
only the
impulse,
the moving confluence of wills that recks not death
and disaster.
No longer they ask for their way,
no more doubts are there to burden their minds
or weariness
to clog their feet.
The spirit of the Leader is within them and ever
beyond them—
the Leader who has crossed death and all limits.
They travel over the fields where the seeds are sown,
by the granary where the harvest
is gathered,
and across the barren soil where famine dwells
and skeletons cry for the return of their flesh.
They pass
through populous cities humming with
life,
through dumb desolation hugging its ruined past,
and hovels
for the unclad and unclean,
a mockery of home for the homeless.
They travel through long hours of the summer day,
and as tire light wanes in the evening they ask
the man who reads the sky:
‘Brother, is yonder
the tower of our final hope
and peace?’
The wise man shakes his head and says:
‘It is
the last vanishing cloud of the sunset.
’ ‘Friends,’ exhorts the young, ‘do not stop.
Through the night's blindness we must struggle
into the Kingdom
of living light.’
They go on in the dark.
The road seems to know its own meaning
and dust underfoot dumbly speaks
of direction.
The stars—celestial wayfarers—sing in silent chorus:
‘Move on, comrades!’
In the air floats the voice of the Leader:
’ The goal is nigh.’
( IX )
The first flush of dawn glistens
on the dew-dripping leaves of the forest.
The man who reads
the sky cries:
’ Friends, we have
come!'
They stop and look around.
On both sides of the road the corn is ripe to the
horizon,
— the glad golden
answer of the earth
to the
morning light.
The current of daily life moves slowly
between the village near the hill and the one
by the riverbank.
The potter’s wheel goes round, the woodcutter brings
fuel to the market,
the cow-herd takes his cattle to the pasture,
and the woman with the pitcher on her head
walks to the well.
But where is the King’s castle,
the mine of gold,
the secret book of magic,
the sage who knows love’s
utter wisdom?
‘The stars cannot be wrong, ’assures the reader of the sky.
‘Their signal
points to that spot.’
And reverently he walks to a wayside spring
from which wells up a stream of water, a liquid light,
like the morning melting
into a chorus of tears
and laughter.
Near it in a palm grove surrounded by a strange hush
stands
a leaf-thatched hut,
at whose
portal sits the poet of the unknown shore, and
sings:
‘Mother, open the gate!’
(X)
A ray of morning
sun strikes aslant at the door.
The assembled crowd feel in their blood the primaeval
chant
of creation:
Mother, open the gate!’
The gate opens.
The mother is seated on a straw bed with the babe on
her lap,
Like the dawn with the morning star.
The sun’s ray that was waiting at the door outside
falls on the head of the child.
The poet strikes his lute and sings out:
‘Victory to Man, the new-born, the ever-living.’
They kneel down, —the king and the beggar,
the saint
and the sinner,
the wise and the fool, —and cry:
‘Victory to Man, the new-born, the ever-living.
’ The old man from the East murmurs to himself:
‘I have seen!’