THE SOUL'S BITTER CRY

29. In right I have no power to live,
Day after day I'm stained with sin;
I read, but do not understand;
I hold Thee not my heart within.
O light, O flame, O first of all,
I wandered far that I might see,
Athihai Virattanam's Lord,
Thy flower-like feet of purity.

30. Daily I'm sunk in worldly sin;
Naught know I as I ought to know;
Absorbed in vice as 'twere my kin,
I see no path in which to go.
O Thou with throat one darkling gem,
Gracious, such grace to me accord,
That I may see Thy beauteous feet,
Athihai Virattanam's Lord.

31. My fickle heart one love forsakes,
And forthwith to some other clings;
Swiftly to some one thing it sways,
And e'en as swiftly backward swings.
O Thou with crescent in Thy hair,
Athihai Virattanam's Lord,
Fixed at Thy feet henceforth I lie,
For Thou hast broken my soul's cord.

32. The bond of lust I cannot break;
Desire's fierce torture will not die;
My soul I cannot stab awake
To scan my flesh with seeing eye.
I bear upon me load of deeds,
Load such as I can ne'er lay down.
Athihai Virattanam's Lord,
Weary of joyless life I've grown.

Fresh pictures in another hymn set forth his sad condition. God's vessels are full of the sweetness of grace, but his spoon has no handle. He feels himself in the deadly grasp of fate, like the frog in the cruel mouth of the snake which is slowly swallowing it down. Or he is on a raft on the sea of life, wrecked on the rock of lust.

33. While violence is in my heart,
Care of my body cage is vain.
My spoon no handle hath when I
Thy honey's grace to drink am fain.
As in the serpent's mouth the frog,
Caught in life's terrors, wild I rave.
Thou, King of holy Ottiyur,
Wilt Thou not care for me and save?

34. When on life's angry waves I launch,
My heart's the raft I take to me,
My mind's the pole I lean upon,
Vexation's freight I bear to sea.
I strike upon the rock of lust!
O then, though witless quite I he,
Grant, King of holy Ottiyur,
Such wisdom that I think of Thee.

It would be hard to find a more comprehensive confession of sin than our next stanza from another hymn.

35. Evil, all evil, my race, evil my qualities all,
Great am I only in sin, evil is even my good.
Evil my innermost self, foolish, avoiding the pure,
Beast am I not, yet the ways of the beast I can never forsake.
I can exhort with strong words, telling men what they should hate,
Yet can I never give gifts, only to beg them I know.
Ah! wretched man that I am, whereunto came I to birth?