Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, KARMA, by JOHN LAWSON STODDARD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

KARMA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Phantom of mystery, older than history
Last Line: Deathless associates, -- shadow and soul!
Subject(s): Future Life; Love; Past; Sin; Soul; Retribution; Eternity; After Life


Phantom of mystery, older than history,
Karma, evolved from a measureless Past!
Wilt thou reveal to me aught of eternity?
Canst thou the infinite future forecast?

Lost in obscurity, dreading futurity,
Humbly I ask of thee, whither we tend;
Are we, prenatally, handicapped fatally?
Karma, what art thou, -- a foe or a friend?

I am thy Nemesis! Lives which preceded this
Gave me the power thy fate to control,
Building thy future ways up from thy yesterdays,
As the great cycles of Being unroll.

Exploits glorious, acts meritorious,
Perfect integrity, love without gain,
Pity, humanity, kindness, urbanity,
Every endeavor to mitigate pain: --

Or (as perchance may be) moral obliquity,
Cruelty, selfishness, envy, and fraud,
Manners censorious, vices notorious,
Baseness, and treason to man or to God: --

All these, appraised by me, settle thy destiny
Ere the new reincarnation begins,
Grading thy scale of worth, fixing thy place of birth,
Balancing fairly thy virtues and sins.

Thus unescapably, justly, implacably,
All that thou sowest thou also must reap;
Words ineffaceable, steps irretraceable
Live in the record I flawlessly keep.

And, should my credit page lower thy heritage,
Still art thou privileged slowly to climb;
Reborn successively, mounting progressively
Upward through numberless eons of time.

Thou hadst the start of me; now I am part of thee, --
Aggregate sum of thy previous lives;
Bodies ephemeral die with the temporal;
Only the soul, with its Karma, survives.

Yet art thou master still, thine the controlling will;
Thou canst determine our ultimate goal;
Where thou dost choose to be, there must I follow thee, --
Deathless associates, -- Shadow and Soul!





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