To An Early Violet

What though thy bed be frozen earth,
Thy cloak the chilling blast;
What though no mate to clear thy path,
Thy sky with gloom o'ercast --
What though of love itself doth fail,
Thy fragrance strewed in vain;
What though if bad o'er good prevail,
And vice o'er virtue reign --
Change not thy nature, gentle bloom,
Thou violet, sweet and pure,
But ever pour thy sweet perfume
Unasked, unstinted, sure !

- Swami Vivekananda

Why We Differ?

A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small frog. Of course, the evolutionists were not there then to tell us whether the frog lost its eyes or not, but, for our story's sake, we must take it for granted that it had its eyes, and that it every day cleansed the water of all the worms and bacilli that lived in it with an energy that would do credit to our modern bacteriologists. In this way it went on and became a little sleek and fat. Well, one day another frog that lived in the sea came and fell into the well.

'Where are you from?' 'I am from the sea.' 'The sea! How big is that? Is it as big as my well?' and he took a leap from one side of the well to the other. 'My friend,' said the frog of the sea, 'how do you compare the sea with your little well?' Then the frog took another leap and asked, 'Is your sea so big?' 'What nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well!' 'Well then,' said the frog of the well, 'nothing can be bigger than my well; there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow is a liar, so turn him out.'

That has been the difficulty all the while.

--- Swami Vivekananda

A Hymn to Shiva by Swami Vivekananda

Salutation to Shiva! whose glory

Is immeasurable, who resembles sky

In clearness, to whom are attributed

The phenomena of all creation,

The preservation and dissolution

Of the universe! May the devotion,

The burning devotion of this my life

Attach itself to Him, to Shiva, who,

While being Lord of all, transcends Himself.

In whom Lordship is ever established,

Who causes annihilation of delusion,

Whose most surpassing love, made manifest,

Has crowned Him with a name above all names,

The name of “Mahadeva”, the Great God!

Whose warm embrace, of Love personified,

Displays, within the heart, that all power

Is but a semblance and a passing show.

In which the tempest of the whole past blows,

Past Samskaras, stirring the energies

With violence, like water lashed to waves;

In which the dual consciousness of “I” and “Thou”

Plays on: I salute that mind unstable,

Centered in Shiva, the abode of calm!

Where the ideas of parent and produced,

Purified thoughts and endless varied forms,

Merge in the Real one; where the existence ends

Of such conceptions as “within”, “without”–

The wind of modification being stilled–

That Hara I worship, the suppression

Of movements of the mind. Shiva I hail!

From whom all gloom and darkness have dispersed;

That radiant Light, white, beautiful

As bloom of lotus white is beautiful;

Whose laughter loud sheds knowledge luminous;

Who, by undivided meditation,

Is realized in the self-controlled heart:

May that Lordly Swan of the limpid lake

Of my mind, guard me, prostrate before Him!

Him, the Master-remover of evil,

Who wipes the dark stain of this Iron Age;

Whom Daksha’s Daughter gave Her coveted hand;

Who, like the charming water-lily white,

Is beautiful; who is ready ever

To part with life for others’ good, whose gaze

Is on the humble fixed; whose neck is blue

With the poison swallowed:

Him, we salute!

This is a translation of Swami Vivekananda’s Sanskrit Hymn to Shiva, reproduced from his

Complete Works 4: 501-04.

Light

I look behind and after

And find that all is right,

In my deepest sorrows,

There is a soul of light.

This poem forms a part of a letter that Swami Vivekananda wrote to Josephine MacLeod from Belur Math on December 26, 1900.