The Sea of Youth with its foaming surges

lies before me,

the sands beside it far stretching,

and glittering like particles of burnt gold.

The radiant sky is above me,

and the sun with its first blush

has tinged the nigh forest.

That blush is but the flame of desire,–

the slow unfolding of a virgin dream,

written across the sky in letters of glowing passion.

Before me lies the sea of Youth,

and I behold it with a lonely heart.

The Sea groans with pain intolerable.

Millions of hungry lips outstretching

towards the sky

try to obliterate in darkness

the new-born radiance,–

to make helpless in sudden flood

the wayfarers on the earth's pilgrimage.

The convulsed waves leave foam behind them;

they hiss with venom in hopeless wrath.

The black, deep, dark waters

give rise to numberless evils within their secret womb;

the winds blow wild across my heart's temple,

and put out the candle-light of worship there.

In the garden silently withers away

the pure, white flower.

I am a nightmare,–

cruel and dry and ferocious,

and my throne is in the dark.

With boundless shame the Beautiful

goes away from me,

seeing the doors all closed

and the dark temple yard;

I can feel him passing away

in the distant smell of spent flowers,

and Misery cries everywhere in emptiness.

Alas, my youth! it is a curse to me!

Yet there are rare moments,

when upon the surging waves descends

a soft and quiet and beautiful light.

In such moments the sky is cut

by the prism of time

into millions of coloured rays,–

and the Golden Lotus blooms,

and all the world is breathless for a while.

Stricken with wonder,

I perceive its fragrance to be a Revelation.

The wonder and the beauty of that Revelation,

which whispers, whispers–

‘Thou art not a cruel beast, nor an insect

which counts for nothing:

Thou art the Fallen Angel!’

The Fallen Angel!!

...And suddenly I understand

why my eyes like two imprisoned birds

seek after the wide, blue depths of the heavens;–

and why the winds murmur love in the forest,

and with their magic touch me into peace.

...I am the Fallen Angel!–

And the sun shines, the dews drop,

and bare branches put flowers forth in ecstasy,

tossed softly by winds from the south.

The moon burns inextinguishably beautiful,

and in shining stars darkness doth weep.

Silent I remain.

And in silence,

my sorrows like festive candles I dedicate

to the altar of the Temple of Joy.

In the divine palace of my body;

I open the Senses like windows

into the endless stream of light.

How many days have passed by

since the golden dawn,

when once a frail Youth with a frail heart

started upon his life's journey,–

alone, weak, utterly helpless!

Long, long days have gone by,

and now I am weary,

while the wind blows around me

the scent of spent flowers.

Now I recall the times

when she used to come out in the fragrance-laden

twilight,

and whispered words of love;–

when, at her touch,

lightnings of joy would suddenly pierce

the darkness of my heartache.

And beauty

flashed in the blue depths of her eyes

the image of my true self,–

and the great realisation came, aching, throbbing,

in moments and hours and days:

I am as pure and white and bright

as the stainless Sun!

Ah! when my Beloved spoke,

her mortal words were transformed into eternal significance,

and the winds blew them into my heart,

touching it with aching sorrow,–

and whispered, whispered–

‘Thou art the Fallen Angel!’

And now I remain silent and think:

Across this bed of mud

there must be somewhere a place for me

in the heart of the White Lotus.

I am the hymn of Dawn,

the breath of night, and the scent of purest flowers:

I am sacred in myriads of invisible shapes,

and laugh at the mean and base things of the world.

All the pains and miseries, the tears and heartaches

break forth in me in passionate songs:

And in glimmering twilight,

I am the High Priest at the altar

where Darkness meets Light in love:

I am the Fallen Angel!