O Sage

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O Sage

Poem

Of all that labours in the mortal fields
Thine is the lion’s share of burden O Sage,
Lugging bereavements of the prevailing age
Through deluded hopes of human moulds.

Woes like rivers pouring into thy calm,
An oceanic equanimity thou givest in return,
Thy surplus endurance these ills does spurn,
Shielding this pitiful earth from excess harm.

How dumbly besotted grew I to thy miracle,
Oh that countenance that marless poise thine,
And I wished, ‘Ah this, this stature to be mine!’,
Unaware of the dangers behind thy spectacle.

With what gaiety my ship bid glad goodbye
To dear human shores and most dearer faces
With heart sails unfurled over new inner seas
And only a wayward inner voice for company.

How many such voyages have been before,
For the unknown forsaking the known
Like a blind gambler to his gamble prone
Pitting his dice against the fates once more.

Counsel O Sage of this perilous course
Do the winds whisper proximate secrets,
Set our sails and rudder to favourable currents,
Or do the elements plot in mutinous silence?

They say we hear Him roar in the storm,
In the angry wave’s whiplash His argument,
Each whirl and vortex a dire experiment
On our straggling will and paltry form.

Is it thus O Sage this battle most unequal,
This moment’s bubble of a roaring wave
With hardly a term to fully joy and grieve,
To be pitched against the lone Immortal?

Aid us O Sage, we know not the subtle terms
Of the knowing soul’s current venturing,
Lend us all a clue for our remembering,
By soul’s victory may we offer our obeisance.