THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

278 The Harmony of Virtuelike a devastating fire. Never was poison so terrible for it containedin itself all the long horror and agony of the ages, all thepain of life, its tears and cruelty and despair and rage and madness,the darkness of disbelief and the grey pain of disillusionment,all the demoniac and brute beast that is in man, his lust andhis tyranny and his evil joy in the sufferings of his fellows.Before that poison no creature could stand and the world beganto shrivel in the heat of it. Then the Gods fled to Shankarawhere he abode in the ice and snow and the iron silenceand inhuman solitudes of the mountains where the Ganges streamsthrough his matted locks, for who could face the fire of thatpoison? Who but the great ascetic Spirit clothed in ashes, whoknows not desire and sorrow, to whom terror is not terribleand grief has no sting, but who embraces grief and madnessand despair.And now wonderful things began to arise from the Ocean;Ucchaisravas arose, neighing and tossing his mighty mane, hewho can gallop over all space in one moment while hooves makemusic in the empyrean. Varunie arose, Venus Anadyomene fromthe waters, the daughter of Varuna, Venus Ourania, standing ona lotus and bringing beauty and delight and harmony and opulenceinto the universe; Dhanwantari arose, cup in hand, thephysician of the Gods who can heal all pain and disease andsorrow, minister to a mind diseased and pluck out from the bosomits rooted sorrow; the jewel Kaustubha arose whose pureluminousness fills all the world and, worn on the bosom of theSaviour and Helper, becomes the cynosure of the suffering andstriving nations.2Such then is Urvasie, Narain-born, the brightness of sunlight,the blush of the dawn, the multitudinous laughter of the sea,the glory of the skies and the leap of the lightning, all in briefthat is bright, far-off, unseizable and compellingly attractive inthis world, all too that is wonderful, sweet to the taste and intoxicatingin human beauty, human life, the joy of human passionand emotion: all finally that seizes, masters and carries away