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		<b><font face="Times New Roman"><i>Hymn to Darkness</i> </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">HERE is a modern poem in Bengali. It is characteristically
modern, though perhaps not quite modernist. It is an invocation to Darkness:</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">That darkness is no more,</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">The darkness in which my heart plunged when you came,</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">It is no more there.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">Many are the lights now around the heart</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">Arrayed as in a festive illumination.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">Ceaseless now</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">There is the earth's merry-go-round all the time.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">But beyond still,</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">Outside Time, the mind, even this mind stands</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">And sends its call to Thee alone.</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">Yes, the Darkness is there no longer;</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">And yet stretching out both the arms<br>
My mind yearns to reach the Darkness<br>
And itself becomes the Darkness.</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Invocation to Darkness has, it appears, become quite
fashionable among a certain group of modern poets. It is a
favourite theme on which many a poet, many a good poet
has played each in his way, a characteristic variation. Curiously
enough, I came across about the same time the work of another
poet, a French poet, also modern and almost modernist and,
curiouser still, in the same manner, a worshipper of Darkness. He is Yves Bonnefoy, originally belonging to the school of<br>
Jouve, an earlier modern. He speaks of two kinds of Night, one
darker than the other—the less dark one is our common day
with its grey light. The other is on the other shore:</font>

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Page 325<hr>

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<i>Vers l'autre rive encore plus nocturne<sup>1</sup></i><sup> </sup>
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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">This darker night on the other shore is not illuminated by
any light, but there is fire there, fire and its flame and the
transparency of that flame: here is his description of how
they stand to each other, that Night and our familiar day:</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman"><i>Une torche est portee dans le jour gris,<br>
Le feu dechire Ie jour.<br>
II y a que la transparence<b> </b> de la flamme<br>
Amerement nie Ie jour.<sup>2</sup></i><sup> </sup></font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">But why bitterly? Perhaps the day (the common day) tasted<br>
bitter in the mouth of the poet.</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The poet has not perhaps the spiritual sense as we in India
understand it. He speaks in effect of a dark goddess, he calls her</font>

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&nbsp;<p align=justify style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<i>Douve profonde et noire<sup>3</sup></i><sup> </sup>
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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; He names her <i>Douve,</i> perhaps in memory of his first master
Jouve, and addresses her as <i>Sombre Lumiere</i> (Dark Light).
He evidently means his poetic inspiration; his vision of the
other shore is that of the world of his poetic experiences and
realisations. But the nature of the contents of that world is
very characteristic. They are apparently qualities and objects
fundamentally spiritual—transparent fire and even motionless silence. Yes, that world is of wind and fire (compare our
world of Tapas) and yet calm and tranquil. So the poet sings:</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<i>Douve sera ton nom au loin parmi les pierres,</i>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<i>Douve profonde et noire,</i>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<i>Eau basse irreductible<b> </b>ou, I'effort se perdra.*</i>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman"><i><font size="2">1</font></i><font size="2"> &quot;Towards the other bank in a still darker night.&quot;</font></font><font size="2">
</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font size="2" face="Times New Roman">2 &quot;A torch is held up in the day's<b> 
</b>grey,<b> 
</b>The fire tears rifts in the day.<br>
There's this: the flame's transparence<br>
Bitterly denies the day.&quot;</font><font size="2"> </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font size="2" face="Times New Roman">3 &quot;Douve dark and black.&quot;</font><font size="2">
</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font size="2" face="Times New Roman">4 &quot;Douve shall be your name far off among the stones,<br>
Douve dark and black,<br>
Irreducible low water where effort shall spend itself.&quot;</font><font size="2">
</font>
		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="center">
Page 326<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">Inspiration, according to the poet, is not the high swell<b> 
</b>of<b> 
</b>garrulousness and anxious effort. It is the solid bedrock underground when all the surface effusions have ebbed away—a
shadowy dark strong tranquil repose.</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A modern English poet—Robert Graves—worships a White
Goddess. But from the description he gives of the lady, she
would appear to be more black than white; for she seems to be
intimately connected with the affairs—that is to say—the
mysteries—of Hades and Hecate, underground worlds and
midnight rites. She incarnates as the sow, although a white
sow, she flows as the sap within plants and rises as passion and
lust in man.</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We in India have a dark god and a dark goddess—Krishna
and Kali. Krishna is dark, his is the deep blue of the sky. Kali
is dark, hers is the blackness of the earthly night. The Vaishnava
poet and saint sang:</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">Oh, I love black,</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">For black is the tamal tree, black is Krishna,</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">Oh<b>,</b> how I love black.</font>

		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ramprasad the Bhakta thus speaks of Kali, his dark Mother: the poem itself is very dark, that is to say, the meaning is dark,
and the style, the phrasing is darker still. A literal translation
is out of question. A very free rendering is only possible:</font>&nbsp;

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">I have brooded over it and I am utterly confused;</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">She in whose name one defies dark time,
</font>
		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">She at whose feet lies low the Supreme in his pure whiteness </font>
		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">Why should she herself be black ?<br>
Many are the forms of blackness,
</font>
		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">But here is a very marvel of blackness.
</font>
		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">If you hold it in your heart,</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; the lotus there shall bloom and burn bright—<br>
Oh, she is dark and her name is Mother Darkness:</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">She is blacker than blackness.</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">But one who has seen that beauty is lost for good,</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-left:30px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">He will have no eye for any other beauty.</font>

		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">Are the moderns on the same track as these older mystics ?</font>
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Page 327<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman"><b>&nbsp;</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But why this panegyric in worship of darkness? Whence
this fascination for blackness ?</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Our ancient Rishis speak of the supreme Light of lights,
the Source of all the lights that burn here, the Light that is
beyond darkness, on the other shore. Darkness is this world,
the world of ignorance, our earthly consciousness; this is a
perception easily understandable. But in the mystic consciousness of a kind, darkness and light seem to be interchangeable. Darkness seems to be a form of light, nay even of a greater
light.</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is said, the occultists say, that between the light of the
day, that is to say, the light of the ordinary consciousness and
the higher spiritual light, there is an interim world, an inter-mediate zone of consciousness. When one leaves the earthly
day, the normal consciousness and goes within and to the
heights, towards the other Light, one enters at first into a dark
region (the <i>selva oscura</i> of Dante). Physically also, the scientists say today that when you leave the earth's atmosphere,
from a certain height you no longer see the earthly light but
you dive into a darkness where the sun does not shine in its
glory as on earth. You see and feel the sunlight again when you
approach the sun and are about to be consumed in its fires. In
the same way, we are told that on the spiritual path too, the path of inner 
consciousness, when you leave the ordinary consciousness, when you lose that normal light and yet have not
arrived at the other higher light you grope in an intermediary
region of darkness. You have lost the lower knowledge and
have not yet gained the higher knowledge, then you are in
that uncertain world of greyness or darkness. Or it happens
also that while in the comparatively faint light of the ordinary
consciousness, you are suddenly confronted with the Superior
Light—through some grace perhaps—you cannot stand the
light and get blinded and see sheer darkness. Again, the infinite sky in its fathomless depth appears to the naked eye blue,
deep blue, blue-black. Light concentrated, solidified, materialised becomes a speck of darkness to the human eye. Do we not
say today that a particle of matter (consolidated darkness) is
only a quantum of concentrated light-energy ?</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Something of these supraphysical experiences must have
entered into the consciousness of the modern poets who have</font>
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Page 328<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">also fallen in love with darkness and blackness—have become
adorers, although they do not know, of <i>Shyama</i> and <i>Shyama.</i></font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Here, for example, is a hymn from the Rig Veda, a whole
hymn addressed by Rishi Kushika to Night. Listen how the
Rishi invokes his black goddess: Night and Light are unified—almost one—in his consciousness. The Vedic Rishis considered
Night as only another form or function of Day—<i>naktosasa
samanasa virupe—</i>Night and Dawn have the same mind although
the forms are different.</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="center">
<font face="Times New Roman">ODE TO DARKNESS</font><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="center">
<font face="Times New Roman"><br>
(Rigveda—X. 127.)</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">NIGHT spreads wide, she comes everywhere, a Goddess with
shining eyes—she looms over these glories as their overlord. (1)</font>

		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">The Immortal Goddess fills up the Vast, above and below.</font>&nbsp;
<font face="Times New Roman">She compels the darkness with her light.</font>

<font face="Arial">(2)</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">The Goddess comes and veils her sister, the Dawn and glows
through the blackness.                                (3)</font>

		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">She is now that to us wherein we shall rest even as birds do on
a tree.                                                 (4)</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">In her repose all habitations, all the footed and winged creatures, even the fast racing eagle.                          (5)</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">0 Ocean-born Goddess! Smite the wolf, he or she, smite the
robber! Carry us safely through.                        (6)</font>

		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">Black darkness clings to me all around; it stands here firm.
0 Dawn! clear it even as you do my debts.             (7)</font>

		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">Daughter of Heaven! A Herd of light is this hymn of victory
that moves towards you. I have made it for your sake. Do thou
accept it, 0 Night.                                   (8)</font>
		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="center">Page 329</p>
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