An unfinished poem
(New Discoveries, Vol. 3. p. 490. This undated poem is preserved in the archives of the Vedanta Centre, Cohasset, Massachusetts. Cf. “My Play is Done”, [6]Complete Works, VI.)
From life to life I am waiting here at the gates — they
open not.
My tongue is parched with ceaseless prayers and dim
my eyes have grown
With constant straining through the gloom to catch
one ray long sought;
My heart is seized with dark despair, all hope well-
nigh has flown.
———
And standing on life's narrow ridge, beneath the
chasm I see —
Strife and sorrow, darkness deep of whirling life and
death,
Of mad commotion, struggles vain, of folly roaming
free.
On one side this dark abyss — I shudder to see it even —
On the other this wall . . .
- Swami Vivekananda
- www.vivekananda.net edited by Frank Parlato Jr.