Paramahansa Yogananda’s poem, “Thy Call,” from Songs of the Soul consists of five stanzas. Each stanza is composed of two rimed couplets. The poem’s theme focuses on the call of the Divine to the devotee when worldliness has too much absorbed the devotee’s attention.
First Stanza: “When lost I roam”
In the first stanza, the speaker declares that when he loses himself in worldly pursuits and becomes entangled in the joys and sorrows that ordinary life presents, he can turn off those earthly noises from his mind after he hears the Divine calling him “Home.”
Interestingly, he does not have to hear heavenly bells or angelic whispers, he hears the Divine calling him “In whistling breeze, / In rustling leaves of trees.” Just a physical, ordinary sound is enough to divert his consciousness from the physical to the spiritual.
Second Stanza: “When, drunk in folly”
The speaker then changes his strategy for his little drama in the second stanza; instead of stating directly that it is the Divine who calls him, he forms his claim into a question. He reveals that it is indeed the “folly” of earthly pleasures that may cause him to behave as though intoxicated.
He finds himself “wander[ing] gaily / By the sandy shore.” Then he hears the roar of the ocean and is reminded of the great “Aum” sound, the cosmic comfort that steals his awareness away from the earthly bustle of nerve-wracking trammels: “Who wakes me with a sudden roar?“
Third Stanza: “When cloud’s o’erspread their veil”
In the third stanza, the speaker demonstrates the negativity that inevitably results from earth life. The good times of joyful play on the oceans’ beaches give way to “clouds” that “steal” his “precious joy.”
Again, he employs the question: when the negativity comes, “Who tears that shroud away / And bursts the redd’ning ray?” Instead of merely stating that it is the Divine Friend who calls him, he dramatically poses the rhetorical question that contains it obvious answer.
Fourth Stanza: “When dark night blinds”
The speaker again reports that things sometimes seem very dark, and one may feel trapped by the exigencies of earth. At that time, again he questions, “Who shows my path and th’ dark beguiles / With mildly mocking moonlit smiles?
The Divine lives as the devotee lives, ready to turn the devotee’s consciousness to peace and fulfillment faster then the speed of light.
Fifth Stanza: “The million starry stares”
The speaker then avers that the sun, the stars, and even the “river’s every murm’ring air” all remind him of the peace, tranquility, and utter bliss that the Divine brings when the devotee hears that “call.”
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