Beyond the uttermost depth of space,
Beyond Chaos' turbid reign,
There is a Being within whose mighty girth
Is all of joy and all of mirth,
But naught of grief and pain.
A mighty Being; of wondrous lore;
Calm, Just, Supreme, Divine.
Forth from its heart there sprang a spark
Of wondrous light; across the dark
Of universe's chaotic clime
It leaps, moulds for itself of earthly sand
A tenement, and becomes a Man.
The spark within the heart of light
Knew naught of grief or pain.
And thus a flaw in the wondrous law,
The law that Moses on Sinai saw —
Karma! that branded Cain.
As ceaselessly it labored
To round the cycle's girth,
It could not find within the clime
Of perfect harmony divine,
The lost link of discord's birth;
Incarnate life is yet untold;
It seeks, and finds the Earth its goal.
A while upon the earth it dwells
A Man; sowing the seed
Of harvests rich, gleans
When the high Sun casts its sheen
O'er action evil and goodly deed.
The Shepherd pipes,
The Smithy smites,
The husbandman plows the field;
And every beast
With man's at peace,
And all to one God kneel.
In all the earth is joyous life
And peace; unknown is strife.
But soon a change comes o'er the scene,
The Shepherd's pipes are mute,
And in their place the trumpet rings,
Of War — a paean, wild, uncouth.
The Smithy smites on sword and sings
Then swiftly comes the horrid strife,
And grief and pain are born;
The woman weeps, the soldier groans,
In agony of flesh o'erborne
The God-man gasps and dies; the Norns
Sing then of death and birth,
Man's future heritage on earth.
And now the Soul, immortal spark,
Free'd from its prison clay,
Swift wings its flight straight up the height,
E'en to the portals gleaming bright
Of that eternal Being; but dark
And closed to him the way;
Bar'd to this soul the light of day.
Swift wings he hither, yonder, far,
Seeking the cause of the hindering bar,
Till soon he sees across the sky
In gleaming letters of golden fire
These words: "Know ye, all men,
That on the earth, within the ken
Of human life, was found the link,
To fill the broken rink of the circle's brink."
And now the Law a perfect sphere,
Revolves through aeons, centuries, years,
For all — immortal God and mortal man.
Karma, the Law, forever stands.
The Law of Justice a record keeps
Of every deed; and says to thee,
"As ye shall sow, so shall ye reap."
And naught can change the law's decree.
So wing thy way again to earth,
Immortal soul to mortal birth.
Take on again the cloak of clay,
And labor, learn and live and pray.
Incarnate life once thou hast known,
Reincarnation is now thy bourne.
On earth thou planted'st deep the seed
Of mortal life and mortal deed;
On earth the harvest thou must reap; —
So saith the Law. It ye must keep,
And take back with thee unto man,
This pure religion, simple, grand.
Teach through the earth from land to land,
From tribe to tribe, from clan to clan;
To earth and sea and shore and sand
The eternal Brotherhood of Man.
The great, the small, the rich, the poor,
The White, the Black, the dusky Moor;
Mussulman, Christian, Buddhist, Jew,
From one root-stock, one Father, grew.
From the womb of one Mother sprang
That countless legion, the race of man.
Of one great God each soul's a part,
Born from the innermost depth of its heart.
And each and every mortal man,
Living and breathing on sea or land,
Is thy brother; heed it well
To feed thy brother, and bid him dwell
Within the portal of thy abode,
And let him not hence naked go;
Thy hearth, thy board, thy cloak divide,
Give half to him who to thee cried,
Succor each suffering one whose need
Is greater than thine, and heed
To the cry of the dog, the motherless lamb,
And aid each one with the work of thy hand.
Write on thy banner in letters of gold
The hope of all, the young, the old.
Cry through the land, o'er plain and wood,
The slogan of peace, Man's Brotherhood.