To a Poet Friend

I was sailing little paper-boats on the river of life.
You loaded them with the rich merchandise of your mind.
You put them on the high seas and made much of what was little.
I dived deep in these springs of your being;
And the deeper I dived, the deeper was the spring.
In the sandy desert of life yours was the only stream.
Like a lone red flower blossoming by the ocean-marge
You stood unshrinking beneath the burning sun.
And gazed at him as effulgent as he.
I know not whether I am the fruit of that flower.
The sun ripens it; the flower bears the fruit.
Where would be the fruit without the agony of the flower?
I would have piped a few ditties; you gave me the organ voice.
I would have flitted on the fringe of life;
You led me to its innermost shrine.
I would have taken beauty to be the hem of her garment.
You made her suckle and fondle me like a child.
You have led me to a country where there are no horizons.
You have thrown open a casement that commands the seas and the sky.
And you have filled the hollows of my brain with the light of all the stars.
Like a gandharva in exile sojourning the earth
You have ushered in heaven into many a hearth and home
And touched to heavenly issues the hearts that hailed you.
The world is at grips with you for you are unsettling the world.
The philistines dread you for you are shattering their idols.
Oh! gandharva in exile! if you thus bear the cross
The world will know some day that you were a son of God.