Whence came
That black‐eyed vision?
It flickered in my life a fleeting moment. Whither did it vanish?
The twilight of many incarnations
Burned in those eyes;
Many lights of my love’s dreams
Have met before in the bower of those eyes.
Today, but a Godless altar—
Lifeless, empty eyes
Are all that remains before my outward gaze.
O Thou Secret Queen of the highest heavens,
From what unknown region
Didst thou come on tiptoe, silently
To bewitch with hidden meaning those two, perfect eyes?
When bitter speech, sometimes, And sadness of higher yearning Drove me to seek rm answers, Often I discovered safety
In the harbor of those two eyes.
Now death—a life‐disrupting earthquake—
Has removed from me forever
Those dream‐sheltering eyes.
Wind‐driven from the harbor of those eyes,
I sailed my boat, seeking Thee again
In the sea—in the sky.
Threefold‐sorrow: no nurturing, no comforting, no loving smiles! Storm‐driven, the boat of my life,
Now motherless, is without a rudder.
Therefore, now, my boat sails on through unknown regions, Rudderless, directionless,
Searching through sea and sky
For those two lost, dark eyes.
Many other starry eyes
Twinkled in black depths, hinting at kindness and sympathy, But they were not those two black eyes I had lost.
Many black eyes, affection‐saturated, Called to me—offering to appease
My motherless sorrow,
To make me feel less bereft and orphaned. But how could any match
The love‐call in the glance
Of those two lost, dark eyes?
The love in those two black eyes,
Like the moon, had set upon the region
Of all eyes, everywhere.
Seeking those two eyes
In memories of past births and deaths
In countless lives and in countless broken dreams In lands both known and unknown,
At last I found my mother’s eyes In the all‐penetrating eyes of my Divine Mother.
Divine Mother’s countless black eyes
Pervaded all space and gazed at me from all hearts. They lurked at the cores of all planets,
And shone with supportive love from all stars. Within and outside of everything,
Those two dark eyes gazed at me tenderly— Everywhere!
Seeking, ever seeking my departed mother,
I found the Deathless Mother of the universe. What I had lost in my earthly mother’s death I found again, forever, in my Cosmic Mother. My human mother’s dear, lost black eyes
I found smiling at me tenderly
From the heart of all space,
And at the soundless center of all atoms.
I asked my Mother Divine— “Oh! How cruelly, carelessly, without warning
Didst Thou strip away the diamond
Of my mother’s love from the ring of my heart! Why, Mother? How couldst Thou have hurt me so?” The cloud‐voice
Of my Divine Mother then spoke,
Thrilling my inner firmament:
“Many times have I fed thee with milk
From the breasts of many mothers.
This time, the loving black eyes of your mother, Though lost for a little while,
Were no one else but I, My very Self.
“When I saw that thy wisdom and thy cosmic love Had lost their way
In the jungle of those two dark eyes,
I set fire
To that alluring darkness.
“I stole from thee those two, imprisoning black eyes
To free thee that thou mightest seek
Their essence in My eyes,
And might’st find that essence, then, in the soulful eyes Of all earthly mothers.
Behold! the eyes of all
Are but dim suggestions of My eyes.
“I broke that dream‐made,
Finite mother‐form of Mine,
That thou might’st behold Me,
Thy Infinite Mother,
In the form of every soulful woman, And in My own shining Cosmic Form.”
