The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 8/Writings: Prose And Poems/No One To Blame

The sun goes down, its crimson rays

Light up the dying day;

A startled glance I throw behind

And count my triumph shame;

No one but me to blame.

Each day my life I make or mar,

Each deed begets its kind,

Good good, bad bad, the tide once set

No one can stop or stem;

No one but me to blame.

I am my own embodied past;

Therein the plan was made;

The will, the thought, to that conform,

To that the outer frame;

No one but me to blame.

Love comes reflected back as love,

Hate breeds more fierce hate,

They mete their measures, lay on me

Through life and death their claim;

No one but me to blame.

I cast off fear and vain remorse,

I feel my Karma's sway

I face the ghosts my deeds have raised --

Joy, sorrow, censure, fame;

No one but me to blame.

Good, bad, love, hate, and pleasure, pain

Forever linked go,

I dream of pleasure without pain,

It never, never came;

No one but me to blame.

I give up hate, I give up love,

My thirst for life is gone;

Eternal death is what I want,

Nirvanam goes life's flame;

No one is left to blame.

One only man, one only God, one ever perfect soul,

One only sage who ever scorned the dark and dubious ways,

One only man who dared think and dared show the goal --

That death is curse, and so is life, and best when stops to be.

Om Nama Bhagavate Sambuddhaya

Om, I salute the Lord, the awakened.