Quotes from Edwin Arnold

There is no caste in blood.

Don't poets know it Better than others? God can't be always everywhere: and, so, Invented Mothers

No power on earth compares to a mother's tender prayers.

Sweetest smile is made saddest tear-drop!

Sleep - death without dying - living, but not life.

Pity and need Make all flesh kin. There in no caste in blood.

Where pity is, for pity makes the world Soft to the weak and noble for the strong.

We are the voices of the wandering wind, Which moan for rest and rest can never find; Lo! as the wind is so is mortal life, A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife.

For death, Now I know, is that first breath Which our souls draw when we enter Life, which is of all life center.

Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes, Or any searcher know by mortal mind, Veil after veil will lift--but there must be Veil upon veil behind.

Ye suffer from yourselves. None else compels, None other holds you that ye live and die, And whirl upon the wheel, and hug and kiss Its spokes of agony, Its tire of tears, its nave of nothingness.

By Me the whole vast Universe of things Is spread abroad;—by Me, the Unmanifest! In Me are all existences contained; Not I in them! Yet they are not contained, Those visible things! Receive and strive to embrace The mystery majestical! My Being— Creating all, sustaining all—still dwells Outside of all! See! as the shoreless airs Move in the measureless space, but are not space, [And space were space without the moving airs]; So all things are in Me, but are not I.

Steadfast a lamp burns sheltered from the wind; Such is the likeness of the Yogi's mind Shut from sense-storms and burning bright to Heaven.

Man hath no fate except past deeds, No Hell but what he makes, no Heaven too high For those to reach whose passions sleep subdued.

By wordless edict; having none to bid, None to forbid; for this is past all gods Immutable, unspeakable, supreme, A Power which builds, unbuilds and builds again,

insight vast to spheres unnamed, System on system, countless worlds and suns Moving in splendid measures, band by band Linked in division, one yet separate, The silver islands of a sapphire sea With waves which roll in restless tides of change.

When ye come where I have stepped Ye will wonder why ye wept;

A great tree grows from two soft leaves To spread its shade afar.

Yet such abstraction, Chief! Is hard to win without much holiness.

Yet not by Vedas, nor from sacrifice, Nor penance, nor gift-giving, nor with prayer Shall any so behold, as thou hast seen! Only by fullest service, perfect faith, And uttermost surrender am I known And seen, and entered into, Indian Prince! Who doeth all for Me; who findeth Me In all; adoreth always; loveth all Which I have made, and Me, for Love's sole end That man, Arjuna! unto Me doth wend.

There hath been a slaughter for the sacrifice And slaying for the meat, but henceforth none Shall spill the blood of life, nor taste of flesh, Seeing that knowledge grows, and life is one, And mercy cometh to the merciful.

The daylight lingered past its time In rose-leaf radiance on the watching peaks, So it seemed Night listened in the glens And Noon upon the mountains.

He goes Unto NIRVÂNA. He is one with Life, Yet lives not. He is blest, ceasing to be. OM, MANI PADME, OM! the Dewprop slips Into the shining sea!

If any teach NIRVÂNA is to cease, Say unto such they lie. If any teach NIRVÂNA is to live, Say unto such they err.