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COLLECTED POEMS
SRI AUROBINDO
CONTENTS
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SHORT POEMS (1930 - 1950)
God’s Labour
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I have gathered my dreams in a silver air Between the gold and the blue My jewelled dreams of you.
I had hoped to build a rainbow bridge Marrying the soil to the sky The moods of infinity. Too frail their ethereal stuff; The roots were not deep enough. Must descend himself into clay And tread the dolorous way. Here on the sordid earth, Twixt the gates of death and birth.
I have been digging deep and long Mid a horror of filth and mire A home for the deathless fire. To bring the fire to man; Are my meed since
the world began. Hoping its lusts to win, Enamoured of sorrow and sin. Page-99 The grey Elf shudders from heaven’s flame And from all things glad and pure; His drama can endure. For the lamps that men call suns Cast by the Undying Ones. That lead to a failing edge; An inn his pilgrimage.
The Light of lights they refuse; To ignorant gods they lift their cry Or a demon altar choose.
All that was found must again be sought, Each enemy slain revives, Through vistas of fruitless lives.
My gaping wounds are a thousand and one And the Titan kings assail, And wrought the eternal will. “Thy hope is Chimera’s head Thou shalt fall and
thy work lie dead. And joy and golden room And bound to life’s iron doom? Page-100 “This earth is ours, a field of Night For our petty flickering fires. How shall it brook the sacred Light Or suffer a god’s desires?
“Come, let us slay him and end his course! Then shall our hearts have release In the burden and call of his glory and force And the curb of his wide white peace.”
But the god is there in my mortal breast Who wrestles with error and fate And tramples a road through mire and waste For the nameless Immaculate.
A voice cried, “Go where none have gone! Dig deeper, deeper yet Till thou reach the grim foundation stone And knock at the keyless gate.”
I saw that a falsehood was planted deep At the very root of things Where the grey Sphinx guards God’s riddle sleep On the Dragon’s outspread wings.
I left the surface gods of mind And life’s unsatisfied seas And plunged through the body’s alleys blind To the nether mysteries.
I have delved through the dumb Earth’s dreadful heart And heard her black mass’ bell. I have seen the source whence her agonies part And the inner reason of hell.
Above me the dragon murmurs moan And the goblin voices flit; I have pierced the Void where Thought was born, I have walked in the bottomless pit. Page-101 On a desperate stair my feet have trod Armoured with boundless peace, Bringing the fires of the splendour of God Into the human abyss.
He who I am was with me still; All veils are breaking now. I have heard His voice and borne His will On my vast untroubled brow.
The gulf twixt the depths and the heights is bridged And the golden waters pour Down the sapphire mountain rainbow-ridged And glimmer from shore to shore.
Heaven’s fire is lit in the breast of the earth And the undying suns here burn; Through a wonder cleft in the bounds of birth The incarnate spirits yearn
Like flames to the kingdoms of Truth and Bliss: Down a gold-red stair-way wend The radiant children of Paradise Clarioning darkness’s end. Shall be carved in silver light With its aureate roof and mosaic floors In a great world bare and bright.
I shall leave my dreams in their argent air, For in a raiment of gold and blue There shall move on the earth embodied and fair The living truth of you. Page-102 |