Brahma
If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
Far or forgot to me is near,
Shadow and sunlight are the same,
The vanished gods to me appear,
And one to me are shame and fame.
They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.
I have never been a big fan of the "Transcendentalist" impulse in poetry.
The ins and outs of Eastern Philosophy tend toward mere verbal sophistry than wisdom or powerful and unique images. "Cruel kindness" makes a slight impact after so many references.
Still, poet Ralph Waldo Emerson could draw out the interesting from the bland-contradictory, as he as done in "Brahma."
I cannot help but consider that Emerson wrote this bagatelle with a smirk in his face, with a chuckle buckled within.
If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.
I interpret this phrase with the damning faint praise of one who sees also this empty sophistry as that — empty.
"Meek lover of the good" after over sixteen lines of impoverishing dichotomies, the poet laughs in the face of one who seeks "good", only to lose the very heaven that he seeks.
Yet good and evil were the tree that first parents Adam and Eve ate from, when the LORD had placed the Tree of Life in the midst.
Good and bad, slay and slain, shadow and sunlight, convey nothing to us without Life itself moving within us to appreciate these differences.