The Dreams of Life, p. 159

Opening Remarks
Life is here to build divinity through transient perishable things. It is this that she dreams and her dream slowly unfolds as evolution in earthly life.

To be what she is not
To be what she was not inflamed her hope:
She turned her dream towards some high Unknown;
A breath was felt below of One supreme.

It is true that at present life is dogged by many imperfections. She is beleaguered at every step as it struggles upon earth with the hard material substance as her means. Thence she turns upwards in her search for the perfection lost, towards some high Unknown that she may find beyond the frame of her living here.

The stuff of earthly dreams
An opening looked up to spheres above
And coloured shadows limned on mortal ground
The passing figures of immortal things;
A quick celestial flash could sometimes come:
The illumined soul-ray fell on heart and flesh
And touched with semblances of ideal light
The stuff of which our earthly dreams are made.

As a result of her seeking and aspiration an opening comes and outpours through that window cut in walls of mud and flesh, some light of the soul, some flash of higher realms, some shadow of the Ideal that ever inspires us to dream and hope for higher things.

The common earth is kindled
A fragile human love that could not last,
Ego’s moth-wings to lift the seraph soul,
Appeared, a surface glamour of brief date
Extinguished by a scanty breath of Time;
Joy that forgot mortality for a while
Came, a rare visitor who left betimes,
And made all things seem beautiful for an hour,
Hopes that soon fade to drab realities
And passions that crumble to ashes while they blaze
Kindled the common earth with their brief flame.

It is true that her dreams seldom last long, love is unable to climb high with tiny wings of the ego-self that are soon broken by earthly realities. Joy and beauty touch awhile and pass away after one brief hour. Hopes fade away too soon and passions burns too low with a smoky flame sinking too soon. Yet for the moment they bring to the earth some shadowy glimmer of light, some mirrored reflection of the flame of God that is hid deep within.

Labour of Man
A creature insignificant and small
Visited, uplifted by an unknown Power,
Man laboured on his little patch of earth
For means to last, to enjoy, to suffer and die.

Man labours striving for these things and struggles to make them last. But too weak his effort and too limited his means. Only time to time he is lifted beyond himself by an unknown Power that drives his flesh for a brief earthly hour after which all his efforts seem to end in the dark abyss of death.

A spirit stood behind
A spirit that perished not with the body and breath
Was there like a shadow of the Unmanifest
And stood behind the little personal form
But claimed not yet this earthly embodiment.

Behind all his effort and brief attempts and transient gains there stood the immortal soul that perished not with the falling of the earthly cloak. It watched from afar without yet fusing with the earthly tenement, standing apart from the form it supported from behind as a delegate divinity.

Closing Remarks
Earth dreams in man, and through man aspires for higher things. But its dreams do not last nor have enough power to climb high. There are brief visitations that momentarily uplift but not yet the utter change that only the emergence of the secret soul can bring.