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COLLECTED POEMS
SRI AUROBINDO
CONTENTS
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The Birth of Sin
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Lucifer, Sirioth
LUCIFER What mighty and ineffable desire Impels thee, Sirioth? Thy accustomed calm Is potently subverted and the eyes That were a god’s in sweet tranquillity, Confess a human warmth, a troubled glow.
SIRIOTH Lucifer, son of Morning, Angel! Thou Art mightiest of the architects of fate. To thee is given with thy magic gaze Compelling mortals as thou leanst sublime From heaven’s lucent walls, to sway the world. Is thy felicity of lesser date, Prince of the patient and untiring gods, The gods who work? Dost thou not ever feel Angelic weariness usurp the place Where the great flame and the august desire Were wont to urge thee on? To me it seems That our eternity is far too long For service and there is a word, a thought, More godlike.
LUCIFER Sirioth, I will speak the word. Is it not Power?
SIRIOTH No, Lucifer, ’tis Love.
LUCIFER Love? It was love that for a trillion years Gave me the instinct and immense demand For service, for activity. It fades. Another and more giant passion comes Striding upon me. I behold the world Immeasurably vast, I see the heavens Page-69 Full of an azure joy and majesty, I see the teeming millions of the stars. Sirioth, how came the Master of the world To be the master? Did He seize control Pushing some ancient weaker sovereign down From sway immemorable? Did He come By peaceful ways, permission or inheritance, To what He is today? Or if indeed He is for ever and for ever rules, Are there no bounds to His immense domain, No obscure corner of unbounded space Forgotten by His fate, that I may seize And make myself an empire as august, Enjoy a like eternity of rule?
SIRIOTH Angel, these thoughts are mighty as thyself. But wilt thou then rebel? If He be great To conquer and to punish, what of thee? Eternity of dreadful poignant pain May be thy fate and not eternal rule.
LUCIFER Better than still to serve desirelessly, Pursued by a compulsion dull and fierce, Looking through all vast time for one brief hour Of rest, of respite, but instead to find Iron necessity and pant in vain For space, for room, for freedom.
SIRIOTH Thou intendest? LUCIFER Sirioth, I do not yet intend; I feel.
SIRIOTH For me the sense of active force within Set me to work, as the stars move, the sun Resistless flames through space, the stormwind runs. Page-70 But I have felt a touch as sweet as spring, And I have heard a music of delight Maddening the heart with the sweet honied stabs Of delicate intolerable joy. Where, where is One to feel the answering bliss? Lucifer, thou from love beganst thy toil. What love?
LUCIFER Desire august to help, to serve.
SIRIOTH That is not mine. To embrace, to melt and mix Two beings into one, to roll the spirit Tumbling into a surge of common joy, – ’Tis this I seek.
LUCIFER Will He permit?
SIRIOTH A bar I feel, a prohibition. Someone used A word I could not grasp and called it sin.
LUCIFER The word is new, even as these things are.
SIRIOTH I know not who he was. He laughed and said, “Sin, sin is born into the world, revolt And change, in Sirioth and in Lucifer, The evening and the morning star. Rejoice, O world!” And I beheld as in a dream Leaping from out thy brain and into mine A woman beautiful, of grandiose mien, Yet terrible, alarming and instinct With nameless menace. And the world was full With clashing and with cries. It seemed to me Angels and Gods and men strove violently Page-71 To touch her robe, to occupy the place Her beautiful and ominous feet had trod, Crying, “Daughter of Lucifer, be ours, O sweet, adorable and mighty Sin!” Therefore I came to thee.
LUCIFER Sirioth, await Her birth, if she must be. For this I know, Necessity rules all the infinite world, And even He perhaps submits unknown To a compulsion. When the time is ripe, We will consult once more what we shall do. Page-72 |