The Spirit of Oriental Poetry

THE DIVINE POET

We love our poet rather than his poetry; our artist rather than his art. Hours spent “vvith the Beloved in sweet calm, mingling our breath with His, are diviner by far than the chant of His songs without His presence. In exuberance of inspiration nothing suffices but His person; the touching of His Lotus feet brings the honey of eternity.

Mere literature is starvation. Unless we see His tent somewhere in the forest the landscape is empty. To that messenger alone do both man and nature give their love and sacrifice, who proclaims where the camp of the Beloved is pitched to-day.

Our idea of the poet is that of a man who can, by the mere opening of his own eyes, enable ours to see the Divine; whose one glance can be our w’hole knowledge. “How do you realise the Brahman? ” the wise men of the East asked the poet in the forest, as we read in the Upnishadas. He smiled and they bowed dowm, saying, “Our doubts are dispelled, we know the Truth. The knots of our hearts have opened, the Lotus has bloomed in us, and we have attained peace.”