Mendicant

---

Mendicant

Poem

And they asked, “What worship is thine,
Where gone loftiness leaving only the puerile,
Where the grand hymns that subtly summon
Through sublime verse in semantics versatile?

Thou art profaned as a common human,
Thy coarse appearance a whit bearable
Than thy pedantic thoughts that are dull burden.
What sacrifice is thine to that Imperishable?”

Said I, “My heart’s throbs too many are His,
Robbed by His hired hands in thickets of Time.
My mind’s thoughts plucked from desire’s roots,
My being is ploughed to a ritual’s rhyme.

My eyes are leashed from tears happy or sad,
The limbs from their instinct somehow shrink.
My dream’s are invaded by thoughts He had,
The unravelling course of my days I can’t link.

Only a little remains yet of what I call me
In all that unfolds of which He authors.
A last foothold of will is all I can see,
This too I shall offer to His coffers.

What wilt Thou then make of this mendicant,
Only Thou knowest O Beloved, Thou only knowest.