Classic and Contemporary Poetry
KINCHINJUNGA, by CALE YOUNG RICE Poet's Biography First Line: O white priest of eternity, around Last Line: On any shrine is left to tell life's sting. Subject(s): Courts & Courtiers; Death; Future Life; Life; Mountains; Dead, The; Retribution; Eternity; After Life; Hills; Downs (great Britain) | ||||||||
(Which is the next highest of mountains) I O white Priest of Eternity, around Whose lofty summit veiling clouds arise Of the earth's immemorial sacrifice To Brahma in whose breath all lives and dies; O Hierarch enrobed in timeless snows, First-born of Asia whose maternal throes Seem changed now to a million human woes, Holy thou art and still! Be so, nor sound One sigh of all the mystery in thee found. II For in this world too much is overclear, Immortal Ministrant to many lands, From whose ice-altars flow to fainting sands Rivers that each libation poured expands. Too much is known, O Ganges-giving sire! Thy people fathom life and find it dire, Thy people fathom death, and, in it, fire To live again, though in Illusion's sphere, Behold concealed as Grief is in a tear. III Wherefore continue, still enshrined, thy rites, Though dark Thibet, that dread ascetic, falls In strange austerity, whose trance appalls, Before thee, and a suppliant on thee calls. Continue still thy silence high and sure, That something beyond fleeting may endure -- Something that shall forevermore allure Imagination on to mystic flights Wherein alone no wing of Evil lights. IV Yea, wrap thy awful gulfs and acolytes Of lifted granite round with reachless snows. Stand for Eternity while pilgrim rows Of all the nations envy thy repose. Ensheath thy swart sublimities, unscaled. Be that alone on earth which has not failed. Be that which never yet has yearned or ailed, But since primeval Power upreared thy heights Has stood above all deaths and all delights. V And though thy loftier Brother shall be King, High-priest art thou to Brahma unrevealed, While thy white sanctity forever sealed In icy silence leaves desire congealed. In ghostly ministrations to the sun, And to the mendicant stars and the moon-nun, Be holy still, till East to West has run, And till no sacrificial suffering On any shrine is left to tell life's sting. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CALIFORNIA SORROW: MOUNTAIN VIEW by MARY KINZIE CONTRA MORTEM: THE MOUNTAIN FASTNESS by HAYDEN CARRUTH GREEN MOUNTAIN IDYL by HAYDEN CARRUTH IF IT WERE NOT FOR YOU by HAYDEN CARRUTH A CHARM TO BRING CHILDREN (EGYPT, A.D. 100) by CALE YOUNG RICE |
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