The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 9/Writings: Prose and Poems(Original and Translated)/An Unfinished Poem

(New Discoveries, Vol. 3. p. 490. This undated poem is preserved in the archives of the Vedanta Centre, Cohasset, Massachusetts. Cf. “My Play is Done”, [6]Complete Works, VI.)

From life to life I am waiting here at the gates — they

open not.

My tongue is parched with ceaseless prayers and dim

my eyes have grown

With constant straining through the gloom to catch

one ray long sought;

My heart is seized with dark despair, all hope well-

nigh has flown.

———

And standing on life's narrow ridge, beneath the

chasm I see —

Strife and sorrow, darkness deep of whirling life and

death,

Of mad commotion, struggles vain, of folly roaming

free.

On one side this dark abyss — I shudder to see it even —

On the other this wall. ..