No Time for Remorse

For Jawaharlal Nehru

T have so much of this moon,

An assured tomorrow and still again

Her nightly promise

Its slow accelerated pace

Will take of late autumn majesty-

No time she keeps

But that of her growing beauty.

I have so much of this moon this night

While you, whose gift of crowded hour

Is spilled, crest upon crest

Of men, ungovernable rising multitude,

As the vital centremost cell

Swelling, loud

Throbbing with coalescing swarm of the social

Artery, spread as one entity

Before your gaze,

Which, no more an abstraction for theory,

Stands as a figure with a well-known face,

Whose real need you know you can

Not help much, whose open scars

Stare you unaltered from every turn-

Crowd to crowd, plane, car, wagon,

To wooden compartments lined with men,

Slave everywhere, fruit decades too late;

Here and there aristocrat, ripe parasite

Which hurts even more . . .

But there's no time for remorse.

For the real need, the real desire,

I have too much of this moon here

While you are insatiate-you whose remote

Perception like most thrilling instruments of science

Designs in absence forgotten continents,

All that has grace and light and sweetness.

You from all this will gather power,

Power incalculable of ingrown volcano,

Power for all men-power to sway

Soul's ecstasy to other uses, until even the air

Bidden with this my verse like dynamo,

Like hard insistent hammer-stroke

On this fast moving time, make a mark,