I PAUSED beside the cabin door and saw the King of Kings at play, <br />Tumbled upon the grass I spied the little heavenly runaway. <br />The mother laughed upon the child made gay by its ecstatic morn, <br />And yet the sages spake of It as of the Ancient and Unborn. <br />I heard the passion breathed amid the honeysuckle scented glade, <br />And saw the King pass lightly from the beauty that he had betrayed. <br />I saw him pass from love to love; and yet the pure allowed His claim <br />To be the purest of the pure, thrice holy, stainless, without blame. <br />I saw the open tavern door flash on the dusk a ruddy glare, <br />And saw the King of Kings outcast reel brawling through the starlit air. <br />And yet He is the Prince of Peace of whom the ancient wisdom tells, <br />And by their silence men adore the lovely silence where He dwells. <br />I saw the King of Kings again, a thing to shudder at and fear, <br />A form so darkened and so marred that childhood fled if it drew near. <br />And yet He is the Light of Lights whose blossoming is Paradise, <br />That Beauty of the King which dawns upon the seers' enraptured eyes. <br />I saw the King of Kings again, a miser with a heart grown cold, <br />And yet He is the Prodigal, the Spendthrift of the Heavenly Gold, <br />The largesse of whose glory crowns the blazing brows of cherubim, <br />And sun and moon and stars and flowers are jewels scattered forth by Him. <br />I saw the King of Kings descend the narrow doorway to the dust <br />With all his fires of morning still, the beauty, bravery, and lust. <br />And yet He is the life within the Ever-living Living Ones, <br />The ancient with eternal youth, the cradle of the infant suns, <br />The fiery fountain of the stars, and He the golden urn where all <br />The glittering spray of planets in their myriad beauty fall.<br /><br />George William Russell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/krishna-9/
