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Mahatma Gandhi: A Poetic Homage From France |
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Francois Brousse
Francois Brousse,
a well known French philosopher, metaphysicist, poet and spiritual
master, wrote a very moving poetic homage to the Mahatma on his
death. The poem, composed in French, has since been translated in
many languages of the world. English rendering of the poem by
Martine Combe, an ardent Gandhian from France, is being reproduced
here.
The Death of Mahatma Gandhi
I
The light of the
world has gone out
The star has
passed away
The starry vault
exhales its lamentations
From the zenith to
the nadir.
The man who
brandished the flame,
The flame of love,
The Inspired, the
Apostle, the Mahatma
Has left the
Earth.
He died like a
saint on the crest,
For India and the
universe,
Killed by the
bullet of crime
Below the great
wide open skies.
And the centuries
to come shall see on Earth
From blood
enlightened,
Rising up, another
solitary Christ,
The righteous soul
slain.
II
Trees, why cry in
the deep forest?
“Alas, we have
lost the tallest tree of our world
“The one who in
his august shadow married
“The brahman’s
dream t the pariah’s tears.”
O winds, why cry
on the far away snows?
“Alas! We have
lost the great breath,
“The brilliant
blow that poured into our hearts
“Embittered by the
Earth, a victorious ideal.”
O mountains, why
are you abyss grieving?
“Alas, we have
lost the sublime mountain
“The great
forehead formed of dawn and granite,
“The magus whose
crown merged into infinite.”
O tragic universe,
why shed tears?
“Alas, the humble
warrior with smiling arms,
“Whose sword of
light annihilates the night,
“The gentle
prophet with peaceful eyes is destroyed.
“He shone like a
sparkling world of mercy!
“A bullet, a vile
lead, has killed the immense being
“Whose quiet face
enlightened our fields,
“He died crucified
as the sun was setting.”
III
Under the colossal
claw of England,
India with her
million beings laid suffering,
And the Himalayas
with its fierce paths
Bowed their
austere crowns.
The Ganges carried
in their extraordinary flow
But the image of a
prodigious prison;
The blue lakes,
with its swans and scoters,
Were as dark as
wells.
Thus you came down
from the trembling clouds
Where the palace
of fairies and gods resplends,
Holding through
your azure fingers, O Gandhi,
Liberty, the
heaven of wise men!
To the beneficent
rays of this golden star,
Quietened the
thunder the great lion of the seas
And the winged
elephant from the everlasting India
Resumes his great
flight;
Now we can see him
fly into the nocturnal air,
Like a magic
vessel carried away by the winds,
His beating wings
well rhymed, his trunk uplifted
Towards the sky
where Saturn blazes;
Glory to you, pure
ancient, who knew how to resuscitate
The Hindu giants
asleep at the bottom of the Ganges!
Out of these
vanquished monsters you made proud archangels,
Kings encharmed
with liberty!
India was once the
fountain of races
And the eternal
race from which the gods surge forth;
She is born again,
adorned with myriads of eyes,
The goddess
forever alive!
A morning light of
purple love flamed
When your blessing
hand spread the light;
Can you see the
whirling people in prayer
Invoking you, O
Mahatma?
Can you sense the
intense despair which troubles them?
Do you her their
song of worship?
O Bapu, the sacred
eye of constellations
Shed tears upon
your corpse!
IV
When the shadow is
about to cover the skies;
When pale mortals
jostle, anxious,
In the blind
unleashing of darkness;
When the hydra of
the night, in its gloomy coils,
Surrounds the
globe, and, under its depraved knots,
Threatens to crush
the trembling universe
Like a python
chokes on a wild doe;
In a time of
murder and havoc;
When, like the owl
lay upon a coffin,
Satan reigned,
dazzled, over the mourning peoples;
When the bells of
hell in chests roar
The Living God
sends a redeemer to the world.
Ram liberated the
raving peoples
The devils-men,
beneath their tyrants’ feet
Crushed, and the
hero erected, like an epitome,
His mysterious and
virtuous life like a temple.
Krishna, the
Virgin’s son, echo of the great Sun,
The bright red
blaze radiating from his heart,
Died forgiving his
cowardly murderers
Like the
sandalwood tree that perfumes the axe.
Buddha, the
Enlightened, told bitter men
To repudiate the
illusory light from the seas
And from the
insane world, to turn their blemished faces
Towards the blue
Nirvana, towards the supreme calm.
When the cross was
erected on mount Golgotha,
The pensive
trinity in Paradise sang
And the king of
hells cried within the flames.
The smile of
Christ transfigures souls.
Then the consoler,
the chosen one of Paraclet,
Manes with his
intense gaze appeared, holding the keys
Of the garden of
light wherein ecstasies penetrate;
He perished
skinned by the sons of deceit.
Nanak came to
teach that with different names
The same formless
God filled the universe;
The Vedas, the
Bible, the Koran, these brimming sources
Reflect wisdom
with universal hands.
Christ in his
heart joins Buddha and Muhammad;
Beneath eternal
roses entwined,
The vision of God
surged forth from his eyes.
You, you knew how
to combine dream and action.
You come, clad in
while like halcyons
To reforge the
heroic chain of the Wise.
Your heart,
vibrating, pure and infinite, offers a message to the world,
This fraternal
call which dominates times,
The never bending
softness and fighting love
To vanquish the
vile doctrine of the sword.
When the furies, a
pack of straying bitches,
Run howling all
over the horrific world,
Your luminous word
brings them back to the stable.
No murder! No
hatred! No death!
Love, in spite of
the ferocious aspic that bites it,
Remains dauntless
to the force of violence.
Heaven’s doves on
your pure brow soar forth,
And from your
sacred hands fall on our clamours
The seeds of
silence, O mystical sower!
Never did you
strike your cynical foe.
You are not the
vulture whose pride is the claw,
But the swan with
clear flanks like eternity.
You are not the
lion with a soul of wrath
But the lamb who
in the face of immense hatred
Hoped to triumph
by his own sufferings.
V
When Buddha would
preach in Varanasi,
An elephant
surging forth from dark forests,
Made furious by a
sinister beverage,
Rushed onto the
crowd trumpeting savagely.
Under its
monstrous feet, crushed beings
Uttered atrocious
cries,
Blood spurting up
to the colossus’ ears
Like tempered
fountains
Walls collapsed
under its cursed limbs;
Devouring at the
convulsive stake, as a deadly fire,
In its threatening
whirling with fulgurating flames,
Children and
women.
The Earth was
beating like a trembling volcano
Beneath the flow
of molten lava,
And the
devil-elephant, panting suffocating,
Full of bloody
foam,
Rushed forward
crushing unfortunate beings
Whose ravaged
corpses in its path
Revealed a reddish
ding. They fled, like swarming frogs
Under the irons of
a bolting horse.
But, suddenly from
the mayhem of the street,
Embraced in a
peaceful dawn,
Buddha, like a
smiling mountain, appeared
Meditating under
visible palms......
Addressing the
huge monster: “O poor fool,
Look at the great
vault full of seething life,
May the healing
splendour of origins
Come down from
their depths upon you.”
Then the mad titan
stared at the infinite
Where the numerous
worlds are in motion,
The ghosts,
leaving its rejuvenated soul,
Fled into
darkness.
Quietly senses
returned to its brain,
As a lamp is
carried into the dark core of a grave
From where heavy
face of darkness fades away,
Hence the elephant
knelt before the wise man.
Thus, O Mahatma,
you calm the hell
Roaring with
laughter and railings,
When furious winds
and red thunder lights
Struck the
colossal India’s.
With the euphoria
of new found liberties,
The battle of
giants gods resuscitate:
Opposed to the
roaring Allah, Shiva spat out flames,
Ancient furies
boiled up again in souls.
Hindus and Muslims
forgetting the Sun
Of divine
tolerance,
Like spectres
turning in their sleep,
Killed each other
on the ruins.
And cities on fire
beneath hysterical heavens,
And knives
mirroring their bloody fire,
And cold vampires,
beneath the greedy earth,
Exulted drinking
the sorrowful blood of humanity.
So, you stood up
against the sacred horror
Against cruel
revenge,
You revealed the
radiating and creating finite,
The abyss wherein
wings beat,
You uttered the
great cry of God: “Fraternity!”
And, wishing with
your own flesh to punish your atheist people,
Atoning freely the
rage of the depths,
You began your
heroic and sublime fast.
You say: “I shall
fast, if necessary, to the death,
Rather than endure
hatred,
Rather than let my
people without remorse
Struggle /in hell!
I want to remind
them by my suffering before them,
That eternal love
radiates in the heavens
And, if they do
not want to put an end to their quarrels,
I shall go praying
into the solemn night.”
Seeing you willing
to die
To save India, our
mother,
Men, up to then
turned into robots,
Stopped waging
wars.
Roaring spectres
abandoned paths,
Shameful knives
fell down from their hands
And, while
vampires fled,
Monstrous robots
seized back their soul.
Four hundred
million men, trembling with love,
Forgetting dark
tempests,
Like birds at
daybreak,
Turned towards
their prophet.
They wept, they
shook, they fell on their knees,
They cried: “O
Gandhi! Bapu! Forgive us!”
And peace
springing from your pure eyes
Upon this vast
ocean spread his light.
VI
But whereas a
living Idea
Like a star led
you,
At the dark end of
terror
Pale toads swam to
the surface.
Human-faced like
cobras
Met each week
With demented
laughter.
They soiled your
holy image
In the name of
gold-plated gods;
They called into
their realm
The most wicked
among the dead.
They emphasized
the sinister heart
Of contemptuous
ministers
And remorseless
conquerors.
These unfortunate,
without any compassion,
Dreamt of perverse
massacres,
They built their
ramparts
In the freezing
winds of winter,
They saw India,
their lover,
As a tiger-goddess
Lapping the blood
of the universe.
Beneath the fire
of gloomy lights
That froze those
maddened thoughts,
Dark spirits, born
out of darkness,
They hastened
their invisible ranks.
They wanted, by a
magical leap,
Penetrate into a
tragic brain
Like a pack of
tyrants.
They found the
violent man,
They broke into
his heart,
They placed in his
devilish mouth
The slaver of the
triumphant crime.
Brandishing a
burning blade,
The man pledged to
evil
To immolate the
gentle redeemer.
VII
The promise to
savage demons
Was kept under a
bloody sky!
Gandhi was
praying, on the edge
Of splendid
samadhis.
His heart burning
like a star,
Sent towards the
One with thousand veils
The inner flame of
all his being.
His soul, opening
pure wings,
Escaping his
thinking mind.
Amidst
supernatural flames
His soul flew far
from riffs
Like a flock of
seagulls!
But, suddenly, the
strange tempest
Unleashed the
lament of yew trees….
Death struck the
prophet
While meditating
on his knees
Before the eternal
celebrations
That dance above
us.
His body falls
like a crown,
The sources of his
sublime blood
Weep on the white
of burnous.
A cry of terror
and anguish
Shakes numerous
humans.
Their hands like
flowers retreat
Towards your
superhuman face.
You, you ascend
into the light,
Into the eternity
of the origin,
Into the pathless
ecstasy.
You bless the
unfortunate assassin,
Poor man a prey to
his fate,
Affected by
appalling remorse,
Who wonders in his
astonished soul.
Love, forgiveness,
mercy,
Are the bread of
your immense heart
Away from frantic
revenge.
You enter the
divine zones
Where your sparkle
fell from.
Beneath your feet,
as in ravines
Scarabs-like
crowds crawl
Up there golden
birds perch
And the orbit of
planets searches
In vain, your soul
slipped away!
Your soar, you
expand, you glide
Through the
infinite beginning;
In your diaphanous
coil
Suns, plunge,
rejuvenated.
Your dilate your
span
Under sidereal
figures,
Higher than angel
and genius.
The flow of
heavens breaks
On the sands of
the far away eternity.
You become again
the great pearl
Adorning the tiara
of God.
Ever helpful rays
Transfiguring the
poor
Will flow from
your ever flaming soul!
O Gandhi! Eternal
light,
Bless the heart of
continents!
Powerful swan, may
the wind from your wing
Put out demented
torches!
On the pale Earth
suffering
Bring back love
from the origins of the abyss,
This glowing
volcano!
Your body,
devoured by the flame,
Reduced into
fecund ashes
Is a seed of light
On the edge of the
throbbing darkness.
Dispersed up and
there in light dust
It envelops the
whole India
With its atoms of
wonder.
So that the
triumphant India
With her holy
rivers
Beneath the light
and the winds
Becomes your own
body, O titan!
There your
superhuman life
Vibrating and
flowing
Where space and
time
Come to drink
From the inspiring
fountain.
Source: Anasakti Darshan Vol. 3, No. 2, July-December 2007 |
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