Collected Poems
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2 Collected Poems VOLUME2 THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO ©SriAurobindoAshramTrust2009 Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA Collected Poems Publisher’s Note Collected Poems comprises all of Sri Aurobindo’s poetical works with the exception of (1) the epic Savitri, (2) poetic dramas, (3) most translations into verse of poetry in Sanskrit, Bengali and other languages, and (4) original poetry in Bengali and Sanskrit. Savitri is published as volumes 33 and 34 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO; the poetic dramas are included in volumes 3 and 4, Collected Plays and Stories; the poetic trans- lations are included in volume 5, Translations; and the original poetry in Sanskrit and Bengali is published in volume 9, Writings in Bengali and Sanskrit. The present volume includes all short and narrative poems in English that Sri Aurobindo published during his lifetime. It also includes all complete poems found among his manuscripts after his passing, as well as incomplete poetry that the editors thought worthy of inclusion. The poems have been arranged in seven overlapping chrono- logical parts, which are subdivided into sections representing different genres and states of completeness. Poems published in small books during Sri Aurobindo’s lifetime have, for the most part, been kept together as published. Sri Aurobindo worked on the poems in this volume over the course of seven decades. The first one was published in 1883, when he was ten. A number were composed or revised more than sixty years later, during the late 1940s. CONTENTS Part One England and Baroda 1883 – 1898 Poem Published in 1883 Light 5 Songs to Myrtilla Songs to Myrtilla 9 OCoıl,¨ Coıl¨ 15 Goethe 16 The Lost Deliverer 16 Charles Stewart Parnell 17 Hic Jacet 17 Lines on Ireland 18 On a Satyr and Sleeping Love 22 A Rose of Women 22 Saraswati with the Lotus 22 Night by the Sea 23 The Lover’s Complaint 26 Love in Sorrow 28 The Island Grave 30 Estelle 31 Radha’s Complaint in Absence 32 Radha’s Appeal 32 Bankim Chandra Chatterji 34 Madhusudan Dutt 35 To the Cuckoo 36 Envoi 37 Poems from Manuscripts, c. 1891 – 1898 To a Hero-Worshipper 41 Phaethon 42 CONTENTS The Just Man 43 Incomplete Poems from Manuscripts, c. 1891 – 1892 Thou bright choregus 47 Like a white statue 47 The Vigil of Thaliard 48 Part Two Baroda, c. 1898 – 1902 Complete Narrative Poems Urvasie 65 Love and Death 111 Incomplete Narrative Poems, c. 1899 – 1902 Khaled of the Sea 145 Uloupie 163 Sonnets from Manuscripts, c. 1900 – 1901 O face that I have loved 177 I cannot equal 177 O letter dull and cold 178 My life is wasted 178 Because thy flame is spent 179 Thou didst mistake 179 Rose, I have loved 180 I have a hundred lives 180 Still there is something 181 I have a doubt 181 To weep because a glorious sun 182 What is this talk 182 Short Poems from Manuscripts, c. 1900 – 1901 The Spring Child 185 A Doubt 186 The Nightingale 186 Euphrosyne 187 CONTENTS A Thing Seen 187 Epitaph 188 To the Modern Priam 188 Song 188 Epigram 189 The Three Cries of Deiphobus 189 Perigone Prologuises 189 Since I have seen your face 192 So that was why 193 World’s delight 194 Part Three Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 – 1909 Poems from Ahana and Other Poems Invitation 201 Who 201 Miracles 203 Reminiscence 203 A Vision of Science 204 Immortal Love 206 A Tree 207 To the Sea 207 Revelation 209 Karma 209 Appeal 210 A Child’s Imagination 211 The Sea at Night 211 The Vedantin’s Prayer 212 Rebirth 213 The Triumph-Song of Trishuncou 215 Life and Death 216 Evening 216 Parabrahman 216 God 218 The Fear of Death 219 Seasons 219 CONTENTS The Rishi 220 In the Moonlight 237 Poems from Manuscripts, c. 1900 – 1906 To the Boers 247 Vision 255 To the Ganges 256 Suddenly out from the wonderful East 260 On the Mountains 261 Part Four Calcutta and Chandernagore 1907 – 1910 Satirical Poem Published in 1907 Reflections of Srinath Paul, Rai Bahadoor, on the Present Discontents 267 Short Poems Published in 1909 and 1910 The Mother of Dreams 273 An Image 274 The Birth of Sin 275 Epiphany 279 To R. 280 Transiit, Non Periit 282 Poems from Manuscripts, c. 1909 – 1910 Perfect thy motion 285 A Dialogue 286 Narrative Poems Published in 1910 Baji Prabhou 293 Chitrangada 309 Poems Written in 1910 and Published in 1920 – 1921 The Rakshasas 321 Kama 324 The Mahatmas 325 CONTENTS Part Five Pondicherry, c. 1910 – 1920 Two Poems in Quantitative Hexameters Ilion 333 Ahana 475 Poems from Manuscripts, c. 1912 – 1913 The Descent of Ahana 495 The Meditations of Mandavya 509 Incomplete Poems from Manuscripts, c. 1912 – 1920 Thou who controllest 519 Sole in the meadows of Thebes 519 O Will of God 520 The Tale of Nala [1] 521 The Tale of Nala [2] 525 Part Six Baroda and Pondicherry, c. 1902 – 1936 Poems Past and Present Musa Spiritus 531 Bride of the Fire 532 TheBlueBird 533 A God’s Labour 534 Hell and Heaven 538 Kamadeva 540 Life 541 One Day 542 Part Seven Pondicherry, c. 1927 – 1947 Six Poems The Bird of Fire 547 CONTENTS Trance 548 Shiva 548 The Life Heavens 549 Jivanmukta 551 In Horis Aeternum 553 Poems Transformation 561 Nirvana 561 The Other Earths 562 Thought the Paraclete 562 Moon of Two Hemispheres 563 Rose of God 564 Poems Published in On Quantitative Metre Ocean Oneness 573 Trance of Waiting 573 Flame-Wind 574 The River 575 Journey’s End 576 The Dream Boat 576 Soul in the Ignorance 577 The Witness and the Wheel 577 Descent 578 The Lost Boat 579 Renewal 580 Soul’s Scene 580 Ascent 581 The Tiger and the Deer 583 Three Sonnets Man the Enigma 589 The Infinitesimal Infinite 589 The Cosmic Dance 590 Sonnets from Manuscripts, c. 1934 – 1947 Man the Thinking Animal 593 Contrasts 593 CONTENTS The Silver Call 594 Evolution [1] 594 The Call of the Impossible 595 Evolution [2] 595 Man the Mediator 596 Discoveries of Science 596 All here is Spirit 597 The Ways of the Spirit [1] 597 The Ways of the Spirit [2] 598 Science and the Unknowable 598 The Yogi on the Whirlpool 599 The Kingdom Within 599 Now I have borne 600 Electron 600 The Indwelling Universal 601 Bliss of Identity 601 The Witness Spirit 602 The Hidden Plan 602 The Pilgrim of the Night 603 Cosmic Consciousness 603 Liberation [1] 604 The Inconscient 604 Life-Unity 605 The Golden Light 605 The Infinite Adventure 606 The Greater Plan 606 The Universal Incarnation 607 The Godhead 607 The Stone Goddess 608 Krishna 608 Shiva 609 The Word of the Silence 609 The Self’s Infinity 610 The Dual Being 610 Lila 611 Surrender 611 The Divine Worker 612 CONTENTS The Guest 612 The Inner Sovereign 613 Creation 613 A Dream of Surreal Science 614 In the Battle 614 TheLittleEgo 615 The Miracle of Birth 615 The Bliss of Brahman 616 Moments 616 The Body 617 Liberation [2] 617 Light 618 The Unseen Infinite 618 “I” 619 The Cosmic Spirit 619 Self 620 Omnipresence 620 The Inconscient Foundation 621 Adwaita 621 The Hill-top Temple 622 The Divine Hearing 622 Because Thou art 623 Divine Sight 623 Divine Sense 624 The Iron Dictators 624 Form 625 Immortality 625 Man, the Despot of Contraries 626 The One Self 626 The Inner Fields 627 Lyrical Poems from Manuscripts, c. 1934 – 1947 Symbol Moon 631 The World Game 632 Who art thou that camest 635 One 635 In a mounting as of sea-tides 636 CONTENTS Krishna 637 The Cosmic Man 637 The Island Sun 638 Despair on the Staircase 639 The Dwarf Napoleon 639 The Children of Wotan 641 The Mother of God 642 The End? 643 Silence is all 644 Poems Written as Metrical Experiments O pall of black Night 649 To the hill-tops of silence 649 Oh, but fair was her face 649 In the ending of time 650 In some faint dawn 650 In a flaming as of spaces 650 O Life, thy breath is but a cry 651 Vast-winged the wind ran 651 Winged with dangerous deity 652 Outspread a Wave burst 652 On the grey street 653 Cry of the ocean’s surges 653 Nonsense and “Surrealist” Verse A Ballad of Doom 657 Surrealist 658 Surrealist Poems 659 Incomplete Poems from Manuscripts, c. 1927 – 1947 Thou art myself 663 Vain, they have said 663 Pururavus 663 The Death of a God [1] 665 The Death of a God [2] 666 The Inconscient and the Traveller Fire 666 CONTENTS I walked beside the waters 668 A strong son of lightning 670 I made danger my helper 670 The Inconscient 671 In gleam Konarak 672 Bugles of Light 673 The Fire King and the Messenger 673 God to thy greatness 675 Silver foam 675 Torn are the walls 675 O ye Powers 676 Hail to the fallen 676 Seer deep-hearted 677 Soul, my soul [1] 678 Soul, my soul [2] 678 I am filled with the crash of war 679 In the silence of the midnight 679 Here in the green of the forest 680 Voice of the Summits 681 Appendix Poems in Greek and in French Greek Epigram 685 Lorsque rien n’existait 686 Sur les grands sommets blancs 687 Note on the Texts 689 Index of Titles 733 Index of First Lines 743 Sri Aurobindo in 1950 Part One England and Baroda 1883 – 1898 Poem Published in 1883 Light From the quickened womb of the primal gloom, The sun rolled, black and bare, Till I wove him a vest for his Ethiop breast, Of the threads of my golden hair; And when the broad tent of the firmament Arose on its airy spars, I pencilled the hue of its matchless blue, And spangled it around with stars.