| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
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| 378. In Salutation to the Eternal Peace |
| By Sarojini Nayadu |
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| MEN say the world is full of fear and hate, | |
| And all life’s ripening harvest-fields await | |
| The restless sickle of relentless fate. | |
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| But I, sweet Soul, rejoice that I was born, | |
| When from the climbing terraces of corn | 5 |
| I watch the golden orioles of Thy morn. | |
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| What care I for the world’s desire and pride, | |
| Who know the silver wings that gleam and glide, | |
| The homing pigeons of Thine eventide? | |
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| What care I for the world’s loud weariness, | 10 |
| Who dream in twilight granaries Thou dost bless | |
| With delicate sheaves of mellow silences? | |
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| Say, shall I heed dull presages of doom, | |
| Or dread the rumoured loneliness and gloom, | |
| The mute and mythic terror of the tomb? | 15 |
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| For my glad heart is drunk and drenched with Thee, | |
| O inmost wine of living ecstasy! | |
| O intimate essence of eternity! | |
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