That the community is made up of the migling of individuals, and owes the perfecting of its education to propherthood

Upon what manner man is bound to man: That tale’s a thread, the end whereof is lost Beyond unraveling.

We can descry The Individual within the Mass, And we can pluck him as a flower is plucked Out of the garden.

All his nature is Entranced with individuality, Yet only in Society he finds Security and preservation.

On The road of life, the furnace of life’s fire, That roaring battlefield, sets him aflame.

Men grow habituated each to each, Like jewels threaded on a single cord;

Succors each other in the war of life In mutual bond, like workmen bent upon A common task.

Through such polarity The constellations congregate, each star In several attraction keeping each Poised firmly and unshaken.

Caravans May pitch their tents on mountain or on hill, Broad meadow, fringe of desert, sandy mound

Yet slack and lifeless hangs the warp and woof Of the Group’s labour, unresolved the bud Of its deep meditation

still unplayed The flickering levin of its instrument, Its music hushed within its muted strings,

Unsmitten by the pounding of the quest, The plectrum of desire; disordered still Its new-born concourse

Its new-born concourse, and so thin its wine As to be blotted up with cotton flock;

New-sprung the verdure of its soil, and cold The blood in its vine’s veins;

a habitat Of demons and of fairy sprites its thoughts, So that it leaps in terror from the shapes Conjured by its own surmise;

shrunk the scope Of its crude life, its narrow thoughts confined Beneath the rim of its constricting roof;

Fear for its life the meagre stock-in-trade Of its constituent elements; its heart Trembling before the whistle of the wind;

Its spirit shies away from arduous toil, Little disposed to pluck at Nature’s skirt,

But whatsoever springs of its own self Or falls from heaven, that it gathers up.

Till God discovers a man pure of heart In His good time, who in a single word A volume shall rehearse;

a minstrel he Whose piercing music gives new life to dust.

Through him the unsubstantial atom glows Radiant with life, the meanest merchandise Takes on new worth.

Out of his single breath Two hundred bodies quicken; with one glass He livens an assembly.

His bright glance Slays, but forthwith his single uttered word Bestows new life, that so Duality Expiring, Unity may come to birth.

His thread, whose end is knotted to the skies, Weaves all together life’s dissevered parts.

Revealing a new vista to the gaze, He can convert broad desert and bare vale Into a garden.

At his fiery breath A people leap like rue upon a fire In sudden tumult,

in their heart one spark Caught from his kindling, and their sullen clay Breaks instantly aflame.

Where’er he treads The earth receiving vision, every mote May wink the eye at Moses’ Sinai.

The naked understanding he adorns, With wealth abundant fills its indigence,

Fans with his skirts its embers, purifies Its gold of every particle of dross.

He strikes the shackles from the fettered slave, Redeems him from his masters,

and declares, “No other’s slave thou art, nor any less Than those mute idols.”

So unto one goal Drawing each on, he circumscribes the feet Of all within the circle of one Law,

Reschools them in God’s wondrous Unity, And teaches them the habit and the use Of self-surrender to the Will Divine.