THE POET, IN PERIL OF DEATH, PRAYS TO THE MOTHER

[Guest guest]

O Mother, Hararama, when will you appear to me? Finished is

this life's play, now let me have sight of you. Every day my body

grows weaker, little by little the sight goes from my eyes. Now

must you appear to me; if you delay, shall I have sight to know

the face of Syama?

 

I know you are present, Mother. Have you not cared for me? and

clothed me? But what your form is like, this I do not know.

 

O Kali, it is you who have put blinders on the eyes of your

child.

 

Anxious care has robbed my body of its beauty. Come, Mother, make

yourself known to me.

 

If when my breath is spent and I am lying with my two eyes

closed, if then you come, O wife of Siva, tell me, what will your

coming profit me? These eyes no longer will have power to see,

and what my mind has thought my mind must keep. No longer

will these lips have power to call on you, my Mother.

 

My body is becoming as a stream whose muddy waters rush along in

flood.

 

Will you not come to me, Mother, and wipe away the slime from me,

your Rama?

 

--RAMACHANDRA DATTA

 

P.S: Remember Ramachandra Datta from the Gospel? One of the first

house holder disciples of Sri Ramakrishna.