COLLECTED POEMS

 SRI AUROBINDO

CONTENTS

    The Vigil of Thaliard

                                    1

Where Time a sleeping dervish is

Or printed legend of Romance

Mid lilies and mid gold-roses

                  Of mediaeval France,

Where Life, a princely servitor

                  Mid alien faces cast,

Still wears in memory of her

                  The trappings of the Past,

Sweet Lily’s child, that golden grape

                  Girl prince of Avelion,

Thaliard by early plucking hap

                  Star-reaching Prince’s son,

Kept vigil by the impious pool

Beyond the misty moaning sea

To win from warlock’s weird misrule

                  His soul’s sweet liberty.

                           2

For if throughout the monstrous night

Unblest by ave or by creed

By witched water Christian wight

                  Do finger bead by bead

His scarlet rosary of sins

                  And leave his soul ajar,

What hour the sleepy Evening pins

                  Her bodice with a star,

Until, the pitchy veil withdrawn

                  That swathes the looming¹ dune,

The crowing trumpeter of dawn

                  Blows addio to the moon,

The awful record of his soul

Shall by God’s finger blotted be,

And o’er his drowned past shall roll

                  Forgiveness like a sea.   

1  yellow

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                                3  

The warden of the starry waste

Who walks with orange-coloured lamp

And weird eyes nursing fire, paced

                  Night’s silver-tented camp.
The rose-lipped golden-footed day,

                  A flower by maiden culled,
Beneath star-blossomed arras lay

                  In Evening’s ¹bosom lulled.

The water seemed a damson crust

                  With golden sugar poured,

Or mirror caked with purple dust

                  In lady’s closet stored.

The hour like a weary snake

Coiled slowly gliding serpentine

Or drowsy nun perforce awake

                  To pace a pillared shrine.

                           4  

The roses shuddered in their sleep,

The lilies drooped their silver fires,

The reeds upon the humming steep

                  Bowed low their tapering spires;

For tho’ no sob pulsed in the air,

                  No agony of wind,

Down Heaven's moonlight-painted stair

                  Trod angels who had sinned.

Fireflies drizzled in the dark

                  Like drops of burning rain,

The glow-worm was a crawling spark,

                  The pool a purple stain;

The stars were grains of blazing sand,

A haunted soul the shadowy lea,

In forest-featured Broceliande

                  Beyond the echoing sea.  

¹ twilit

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                           5  

Sir Thaliard by the phantom edge

Heard rustling feet behind the trees

And the weird water lapped the sedge

                  With wistful symphonies:

Sometimes a thrill of voices broke

                  In runic tongues of old,

Sometimes pale fingers seemed to stroke

                  His curls of crisping gold:

Thin laughter sobbed he knew not where

                  Till God’s own candles paled,

Or else out in the moonless air

                  A golden infant wailed.

Now in the moon’s enchanted wake

Wild shadows ran a giant race,

And now the golden glassing lake

                  Was blotted with a face.

                           6  

But when the naked moon rose clear

Above the ruins of the day,

Childe Thaliard saw a glinting spear

                  Across the milky way.

And when the white moon’s sliding feet

                  One rank of stars had passed,

Upon him smote the windy beat

                  And terror of a blast.

The tempest rippled thro’ the leaves,

                  New wine of evening sucked,

And at the water-lily sheaves

                  With nervous fingers plucked.

And in its wind-white arms it bore

A helmeted¹ and sceptred thing,

The semblance of a man, that wore

                  The glory of a king.

¹ diademed

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                           7  

An argent cincture studded thick

With opal and the blushing stone

Fine wrought of texture Arabic

                  About his middle shone:

And in its buckled girth did sit,

                  A fierce and cloudy star,

Of temper fine as poet’s wit

                  The Orient scimitar.

Morocco gave his wrathful dart,

                  The spring of widowed tears,

Tempered in Afric’s sultry heart

                  Or famous far Algiers.

His barb was hued like cedar’s core

In Aramaic ¹ mountains born,

Wild as the sea on storm-vexed shore

                  And fronted as the morn.

                           8  

Upon his kingly head the crown

Was eloquent of Iran’s gold

Dropping fine threads of glory down

                  Upon the turban’s fold.

His eyes were drops of smelted ore

                  That in a foundry chase:

His lips a cruel promise wore,

                  A marble pride his face.

As shows thro’ gold caparison

                  Laburnum dusky-stemmed,

Thro’ silks in Persian harem spun

                  His gorgeous body gleamed.

Or as a lithe and tropic snake

That from some fine mosaic glares

Or spotted panther by a lake

                  Beneath the Indian stars.

¹ Aramean

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                           9  

This Orient vision burning bright

Snapped close his bridle silver-lined

Between the moonlight and the night,

The water and the wind.

His cry sang like a stormy shower

Upon a thundering sea:

“O Thaliard, Thaliard, Britain’s flower,

Wilt break a lance with me?

The golden scythe of Mahomet

Gleams crescent on my shield,

My harvest upon thine is set,

                  A cross in argent field.

Prince-errant, prop of battle styled

                  And flawless glass of chivalry,

O Thaliard, Thaliard, golden childe,

                   Wilt break a lance with me?”

                           10  

As trailing thunder dies in heaven

Thro’ silence trailed his latest word,

And fire like the bearded levin

                  Beneath his eyelids stirred.

Child Thaliard saw the burning stars

                  Vermilion grown like blood

Thrice drew the serpent cross of Mars,

                  Thrice clamoured where he stood.

But Thaliard saw a milk-white star

                  Grow large against the moon,

Quelled by whose candid flames, afar

                  Mars’ ruby paled in a swoon.

“Not here,” he faltered like the wind,

“Not here where murmurs poison sleep,

When haunted memories grown half blind

                  Their ghastly vigils keep.”

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                                    11  

“Not here, when drifts past happy shores

From mortal vision far withdrawn

With lustrous sails and dripping oars

                  The hull that brings the dawn.

Seek me, but in the cloudy time

                  When ruin blazons forth

In sanguine hues the vaporous clime

                  And champaigns of the North.”

As wine that from the bubbling lips

                  Of some fine beaker falls,

This honeyed utterance largely slips

                  Like murmurs in vast halls.

The wimpled moon bent down her ear,

And in the granaries of light

The seedling splendours thrilled to hear,

                  And all the east grew bright.

                           12   

The phantom like a burning page

Was furrowed with the ploughs of wrath,

And thro’ his wintry orbs white rage

                  Rolled like the dead sea-froth.

His lance poised slanting like a ray

                  Of ominous sunlight fell,

Astarte in the milky way

                  Saw death half-risen from hell:

And soon the cold hooves of his horse

                  On shivering lilies trod,

Till, yellow anguish borrowing force,

                  Childe Thaliard cried on God.

The phantom, withering thro’ the bars.

Of Being like transitory sound,

Left but the murmur of the stars,

                  Left but the hush profound.

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                                    13  

And now the naked wanton moon

Shed languorous glances on the lake

Whose ripples sobbing from their swoon

                  Grew golden for her sake:

The amorous stars were faint with love;

                  Earth’s awning seemed so light

That Hesper like a flying dove

                  Would tremble into sight.

When Thaliard saw in drooping skies

                  Large drops of beauty burn,

A white-winged chorus did arise,

                  The prayers that purely yearn.

But Thaliard saw the curling deep

With foamy moon-tints blaze and break,

Till the slack spirit longed to steep.

                  Rich fancies in the lake.

                           14  

 The penitent chorus of his prayers

Were mingled with voluptuous speech

Of daedal images and airs

                  Luxurious wrapping each:

A blue papyrus-leaf designed

                  With fretted curls of fire,

A purple page with coronet lined

                  Or labyrinthine spire:

The fiery-coloured bee of night

                  With folded purple wing,

Or solitary chrysolite

                  Shut in an emerald ring:

The vellum binding of a book,

A scented volume spiced with Ind,

A magic purse by Genie shook

                  To loose a murmuring wind.

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 15  

But hark! a wailing anguish woke

The silence with a fiery sting:

The foaming gulfs of clamour broke

                  Around a fallen king:

A distant moan of battle high

                  Above a phantom land,

And heron-weird a woman’s cry

                  Went shrilling down the strand.

While terror with a vulture’s force

                  Was plucking at his throat,

He heard the shrill hooves of a horse

                  Prick echoes less remote.

And like old accents Night may lend

On lips long hushed in endless sleep,

The voice of a familiar friend

                  Came shuddering from the deep.

                  16   

“Thaliard, awake; the smiling morn

Forgets the cloud of yesterday:

The sceptre from thy house is tom,

                  Thy glory washed away.

Amid the reeling battle trod,

                  As a poppy in the mill,

With white face lifted up to God,

                  Thy sire lies very still.

Pendragon’s spear has stung him dead,

                  He sleeps among the slain;

The glorious princes heap his bed,

                  Like lilies in a plain.

Thy brothers Galert and Gyneth

Like toppling mountains whelmed I saw

Beneath the shadowy winds of death

                  In the rushing tide of war.

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                                    17  

“Thy sister, fawn-eyed Guendolen,

Haled captive from thy tottering hall,

Lies helpless in the dragon’s den

                  Luxurious Gawain’s thrall.

His kisses tremble on her mouth

                  Like moonbeams on a rose,

For she is water to his drouth,

                  He sunlight to her snows:

Her flowering body to his love

                  A pleasance-garden sweet;

Her spirit, meeker than a dove,

                  Fawns blindly at his feet.

And with the pelting words of shame,

Like delicate pigments bleared by storm,

The gorgeous colouring of thy name

                  Is losing gloss and form.

                           18  

“The night-wind in thy yawning dome

Has made her nest alive with song,

The humming wasps of Aeolus roam,

                  Low-flying in a throng:

The thunder like a flying stork

                  Clangs hoarsely but aloof,

And lightning with his vermil fork

                  Has written on thy roof.

The lion lodges in thy gate,

                  The werewolf is thy guest,

The night-owl, like a sombre fate,

                  Wails weirdly without rest.

Thy deeds are grown a haunting rhyme,

A fragment breaking from the past,

An atom, which the meteor, Time,

                  In his fiery flight has cast.”

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                           19  

With sobs of shuddering agony bled

The silence as with stinging whips,

But Thaliard felt slim fingers laid

                  Upon his writhen lips.

The soul’s redoubts flung each to each

                  A ringing challenge round,

To clench the ruby gates of speech

                  On the corridors of sound.

In dancing dithyrambs thro’ each vein

                  A dizzy echo sang,

While on the anvil of his brain

                  The steely syllables rang:

And from the avenues of the heart

Thro’ which the river of being pours,

The torpid life with a sudden start

                  Recoiled upon its doors.

                           20  

The voice was now a violin

Shrill-winding, now a startled bat,

And now as linnet’s warble thin,

                  Now wailful as a gnat,

But gathered volume as of yore

                  Until with refluent tide,

Like Ocean ebbing from her shore;

                  The murmur ebbed and died.

Like beauty losing maidenhood

                  Astarte debonair.

Undid the crocus-coloured snood

                  That bound her glimmering hair.

And up the ladder of the moon,

As white smoke curls upon a glass,

He saw with flakes of glory strewn

                  A radiant figure pass.

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                            21

Again the stealthy minutes crept

On tiptoe to the breathless hour

And loud suspense her riot kept

                  Till budding doom should flower.

The yellow moon, whom Heaven once more

                  From silver cowl did shake,

With golden letters scribbled o’er

                  The purple-written lake.

But when to Heaven’s polished breast

                  Her rounded amulet clung

Below in the blue palimpsest.

                  A slit, a chasm sprung.

A meteor from the purple brink,

A vivid star no eye may lose,

A pictured bowl of nectarous drink,

                  An apparition rose.

                           22  

And in the bridal pomp of hell

Walked beauty hand in hand with sin,

And Thought, the glorious infidel

                  A helmed Paladin;

When shuttering under cloudy bars

                  Astarte’s radiant eye,

God sowed with multitudinous stars

                  His peacock in the sky,

The diamonds perished from the deep;

                  The moon-tints from the edge,
The wrinkled water smoothed in sleep

                  His locks of ruffled sedge.

Imagination, like a sponge

Wrung very pure of beauty, wept,

As from his pores with a tired plunge

                  His flakes of fancy leaped.

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                           23  

Astarte from her cloudy chair

Paced with her troop of star-sweet girls;

Unfilleted her glorious hair

                  Hung loose in cowslip curls.

And like the flower-song of a bee

                  On April’s daffodil skirt,

A whisper from the smiling sea

                  In her crocus gown did flirt.

The waters quivering to her wiles

                  Among the rushes whipped,

As thro’ the network of her smiles

                  Her visible murmur slipped.

But when they wooed her to repeat

Her primrose-painted pilgrimage,

She dipped the white palms of her feet

                  In beds of bubbling sedge;

                            24  

Her body lapped in cloth of gold

A wave disguised in moonlight seemed,

Whose every curve and curious fold

                  With opal facets gleamed.

Her nestling mass of rounded curls

                  Were soft as velvet cloths

Once fingered by Arabian girls

                  Or piled in Syrian booths.

She was an ebon-framèd lyre

                  Where wind-waked murmurs dance,

A tinted statue of Desire

                  In studios of Romance.

Her glowing cheeks just ripe with youth,

The purple passion of her eyes;

Half seemed a splendid mock at truth,

                  A brilliant mesh of lies.

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                           25  

Below with balmy sobs that drank

The must of life thro’ thirsty lips,

Her pained bosom heaved and sank

                  Like Ocean-cradled ships.

And as bee-blossoms sapphire-looped,

                  The humming waves that kiss,

Her creamy forehead almost drooped

                  Burthened with too much bliss.

The artist Grace who limned her fair

                  With moist and liberal brush

Painted a glory in her hair

                  And mixed a gorgeous blush

To tint her cheeks with a flowery bloom,

To touch her lips with scarlet fire, -

An empire's beauty in small room,

                  A vision of desire.

                           26  

A fairy witch by painful charms

Had burgeoned this refulgent flower,

Embraced by wild and wanton arms

                  In weird and midnight hour.

She on the amber milk of bees

                  By magic mother nursed,

In laurel-sheltered libraries

                  Cons rudiments accurst,

The most familiar things of hell

                  The mightiest names inherits,

And learns what iron syllable

                  Compels reluctant spirits.

A perilous thorn on fire with bloom,

A poppied spell, an empress snake,

She rose, the alchemist of doom,

The Lady of the Lake.

                                       (Incomplete)

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