28
Then there is the Law—the Law of unlove which binds;
Which feeds the worm and the bully in men, which blinds;
Which promulgates in the day what was conceived in the night;
Which says, ‘An eye for an eye,’ instead of giving clear sight;
Which, every moment, crucifies God-Man in men,
And turns the house of God, the heart, into a thief’s den.
The Law, the Law: the Unlove, the Covenant, the Distrust
Which grinds men down—but not to singing dust.
But love goes on singing—though the throat of it is behind bars—
And its voice reaches beyond space and goes on before the stars—
The stars which do not obey Law, but in love’s net swing.
And the swing goes in the rhythm of the song that lovers sing:
Swinging in the singing in the space of love’s heart to man-state,
They proclaim to all mankind that only love is great.
Here is the binding of the law which kills as against the freedom of the previous poem which gives life. It is about power, feeding both obsequiousness and dominance. Here the night is a time not of inspiration but of dark and evil. This makes a religion like that of the money changers in the temple in Jesus’ day – “And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves. And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves”. Matthew 21: 12,13.
This crucifixion of God in man can oppress and imprison love but not defeat it. Love belongs to a cosmic order above the abuses of power. Beauty and rhythm point to this reality.
The stars are not ruled by law but swing in ‘love’s net’, gravity, which Baba described as a form of love. They are not something to be conquered but something to elicit love because of their beauty.
I think the word ‘to man-state’ should probably be dropped from the second last line since they are not necessary and spoil the rhythm.