From the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda – Volume 9 – Writings: Prose and Poems(Original and Translated)
(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”, 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 . . .