WHEN MY mind was released
from the black cavern of oblivion
and woke up into an intolerable surprise
it found itself at the crater of a volcanic hell-fire
that spouted forth a stifling fume of insult to Man;
it witnessed the long-drawn suicidal agony of the Time-spirit
passing through convulsions of a monstrous deformity worse than death.
On its one side a defiant savagery
and the growl of homicidal drunkenness,
on the other timid powers tied to the load
of their carefully guarded hoardings,
meekly settling down to a silent safety of acquiescence
after miscalculated bursts of impatience.
At the old nations' council-chambers
plans and protests are pressed flat between the tight-shut prudent lips.
In the meanwhile across the sky rush with their blazing blasphemy
the soulless swarms of vulture-machines
carrying their missiles of ravenous passion for human entrails.
Give me power, O awful Judge,
sitting on the throne of Eternity,
give me a voice of thunder,
that I may hurl imprecation
upon this cannibal whose gruesome hunger
spares neither women nor children,
that my words of reproach may ever rock
upon the heart-throbs of a history humiliated by itself,
till this age choked and chained
finds the bed of its final rest in its ashes.

MAN BARRICADES against himself.

ক্ষণকালের গীতি
      চিরকালের স্মৃতি।