Exhortations

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Exhortations

Poem

By feeble exhortations of a human will
Through a repeated attention’s perseverance
Into a rumination I gain admittance,
The mind is polished to be nearly still.

Am shown the extent of desire’s root
Tangled deeply with impulse to become,
From when the soul made a body home
Leashing a god to the human brute.

I see the half-lamps of knowledge glimmer
Their lure of little ends and their utility,
By daily commerce that bars the liberty
Of the soul that is trapped in matter.

All the wisdom that now rains down
Seeps away traceless in being’s sand,
Endless seem existence’s occult demand
Before it yields the soul its crown.

Yet by action must I striving purchase
And not give in to the recluse’s ploy,
All tact of thought and will employ
To set my soul to its true enterprise.