Krishna. Men call the Aswattha,- the Banyan-tree,-
Which hath its boughs beneath, its roots above,- The ever-holy tree. Yea! for its
leaves Are green and waving hymns which whisper Truth! Who knows the Aswattha, knows
Vedas, and all.
Its branches shoot to heaven and sink to earth, Even as the deeds of men, which take their birth
From qualities: its silver sprays and blooms, And all the eager verdure
of its girth, Leap to quick life at kiss of sun and air, As men's lives
quicken to the temptings fair Of wooing sense: its hanging rootlets seek
The soil beneath, helping to hold it there, As actions wrought amid this world of men
Bind them by ever-tightening bonds again.
If ye knew well the teaching of the Tree,
What its shape saith; and whence it springs; and, then How it must end, and all the ills of it,
The axe of sharp Detachment ye would whet, And cleave the clinging snaky
roots, and lay This Aswattha of sense-life low,- to set New growths
up springing to that happier
sky,- Which they who reach shall have no day to die, Nor fade away,
nor fall- to Him, I mean, FATHER and FIRST, Who made the mystery
Of old Creation; for to Him come they From passion and from dreams who break away;
Who part the bonds constraining them to flesh, And,- Him, the Highest,
worshipping always- No longer grow at mercy of what breeze
Of summer pleasure stirs the sleeping trees, What blast of tempest tears
them, bough and stem: To the eternal world pass such as these!
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