Surrender

[Guest guest]

Surrender

 

by Major Chadwick

 

I say that I have surrendered,

But what have I given up?

It's easy to talk in this fashion

Though it's nothing but empty words,

Which come from the tongue of glibly

In a sentimental way.

 

I'm tired of all talk and no action,

But better than either of these

Is the silence of the Spirit,

The Silence we find with you,

A potent and thundering Silence

Which swallows all up in itself.

 

Like the magnet which pulls at the iron

You draw me and hold me so fast,

But why do you leave me in this way

With the work only just begun?

You make me your slave and a pris'ner;

For You that's all right, not for me.

 

You leave me my mind with its worries,

Why don't you take that with the rest?

For the mind is the cause of all trouble,

Creating the world and its ties.

The things that I say I've surrendered

I haven't surrendered at all.

 

It's all just show and pretending,

Prostrating and that sort of thing.

Quoting of texts and of Shastras,

Perfect in word not in deed.

I'm sick, sick, sick of this business,

I want to start fresh but I can't.

 

So please just stop being the magnet,

Don't take me at all or take all!

Transmute me until I am blended

With You so that both are as One.

When there's no longer the talk of surrender

Then alone has surrender begun.

 

************************

 

(in: Golden Jubilee Souvenir 1896-1946, p. 215f)