Classic Poem

The Banyan builds upon the ground
Its lofty halls, its tents green-gowned;
Rears shaft and groin of noble plan,
Great massive architrave and span
With twining branches interwound.

Through all the sultry lands around,
One cool rest-covert is renowned, —
The joy of every caravan —
The banyan tree.

So our humanity is found
Earth-rooted ever, yet love-crowned,
Our life is in the lights and man
Is like that grove in Hindustan,
The banyan tree.

In ancient Kalikhat, where Hoogli bears
The commerce of the Ind to Southern Seas,
The mother Earth suckles her banyan children
With life streams that rise and flow
To fill with stateliness a thousand lofty arches
And roof with living green their myriad shades.
An undefined appeal is in that banyan grove:
Compounded of the sun and soil,
With roots to earth all turning,
Its leaf-lips sing dream-symphonies,
Like a sweet harp deep-ringing in the soul.
Its whispers blend like children's voices
Laughing low in eager happiness,
Yet is it filled with the serene immensities,
Life-lifted to the freedom of the stars.

O Temple-grove, thou seemest almost human!
Am I not, too, a thousand souls in one,
And thou my brother, friend, companion?
The blight of earth sustains us both,
The blight of hurricane, the blast of fire
Devastate both with death,
Yet here are both, despite the fire and flood,
In free, unconquered life, invincible.

O thou compassionate shelter in a weary land,
We too wave spirit-arms to greet the sun
And yearn for the inviolable blue.
Our lives shall be a resting-place
And covert from the heat upon that road
Whereon souls press to a great peace
And drink from everlasting fountains.

Ourselves, unrecognized in others,
Become our enemies. We smite our foes,
Wounding our own hearts with words and thoughts
That cut like scimitars. Our eyes
Turn selfward, kindly and indulgent;
Away from self, keen and suspicious.
We see life but in shreds and grasp at these,
Not knowing life is one.
Fear and unfaith divide us,
Blinding us to Love that longs to lift us all
To sun-sweep of all-oneness.

Great emblem of the cosmic powers,
Teach our blind hearts the vaster unities,
That we may gaze-into that deep blue eye of love
That mortals name the sky,
And feel the heart-beat of the Universe.