O Venerable, O Ancient!

Once in a grey hour of despair
I huddled within in an ego shell
Caught in grip of a futility’s spell,
A gloom was upon my stare.

O why must I be most unvisited
By Thee I thought; unfriended, alone
Bereft of Thee and most forlorn
In this empty house of Night.

And then I heard in a million cells
Thy voice, a flower-soft resonant thunder,
Drowning my being in utmost wonder
Saying, ‘O who in despair calls

To Me in all things ever present?
Deaf mute to all apparent glory
That I invested in thy little story?
In what speck am I now absent

I who uphold thee on this globe?
The sentinel stars I have appointed
From empty space to thee guard.
I shield thy soul with a living robe,

Crowned thee with a mind to muse.
The daily victory of the champion sun
Over all that the Night has done,
Its daily distortions, its wily ruse.

I send thee messenger birds
On airy roads through space afar,
In melodious beaks My words of care
To shore thee from sullen moods.

O lone pilgrim in eternal Time,
Thy roads are never empty
Of My unerring will and beauty,
Circle boldly My manifest shrine.’

The words then sunk to my soul,
It awoke then from Time’s stupor,
In radiance the gloom did disappear
Outshining this matter’s dim rule.

I then prayed, ‘O Venerable, O Ancient,
Obeisance to Thee most beneficent!’

Poem