Epiphany Majestic, mild, immortally august, In silence throned, to just and to unjust One Lord of deep unutterable love, I saw Him, Shiva, like a brooding dove Close-winged upon her nest. The outcaste came, The sinners gathered round that tender Flame, The demons, by the other sterner gods Rejected from their luminous abodes, Gathered around the Refuge of the lost, Soft-smiling on that wild and grisly host. All who were refugeless, wretched, unloved, The wicked and the good together moved Naturally to Him, the asylum sweet, And found their heaven at their Master’s feet. The vision changed and in His place there stood

Madhusudan Dutt Poet, who first with skill inspired did teach Greatness to our divine Bengali speech ,— Divine, but rather with delightful moan Spring’s golden mother makes when twin-alone She lies with golden Love and heaven's birds Call hymeneal with enchanting words Over their passionate faces, rather these Than with the calm and grandiose melodies (Such calm as consciousness of godhead owns) The high gods speak upon their ivory thrones Sitting in council high, — till taught by thee Fragrance and noise of the world-shaking sea. Thus do they praise thee who amazed espy Thy winged epic and hear the arrows cry And jour

TheThreeCriesofDeiphobus Awake, awake, O sleeping men of Troy, That sleep and know not in the grasp of Hell I perish in the treacherous lonely night To foes betrayed, environed and undone. O Trojans, will ye sleep until the doom Have slipped its leash and bark upon your doors? Not long will ye, unless in Pluto’s realm, Have slumber, since forsaken among foes I drink the bitter cup of lonely death Unheeded and from helping faces far. O Trojans, Trojans, yet again I call! Swift help we need, or Ilion’s days are done. Epitaph Moulded of twilight and the vesper star Midnight in her with noon made quiet

To R. ON HER BIRTHDAY The repetition of thy gracious years Brings back once more thy natal morn. Upon the crest of youth thy life appears, – A wave upborne. Amid the hundreds thronging Ocean’s floor A wave upon the crowded sea With regular rhythm pushing towards the shore Our life must be. The power that moves it is the Ocean’s force Invincible, eternal, free, And by that impulse it pursues its course Inevitably. We, too, by the Eternal Might are led To whatsoever goal He wills. Our helm He grasps, our generous sail outspread His strong breath fills. Exulting in the grace and stre

-28_The Vedantin's Prayer.htm The Vedantin’s Prayer Spirit Supreme Who musest in the silence of the heart, Eternal gleam, Thou only Art! Ah, wherefore with this darkness am I veiled, My sunlit part By clouds assailed? Why am I thus disfigured by desire, Distracted, haled, Scorched by the fire Of fitful passions, from thy peace out-thrust Into the gyre Of every gust? Betrayed to grief, o’ertaken with dismay, Surprised by lust? Let not my grey Blood-clotted past repel thy sovereign ruth, Nor even delay, O lonely Truth! Nor let the specious gods who ape Thee still Deceive my youth.

The Descent of Ahana* AHANA Strayed from the roads of Time, far-couched on the void I have slumbered; Centuries passed me unnoticed, millenniums perished unnumbered. I, Ahana, slept. In the stream of thy sevenfold Ocean, Being, how hast thou laboured without me? Whence was thy motion? Not without me can thy existence be. But I came fleeing;- Vexed was my soul with joys of sound and weary of seeing; Into the deeps of my nature I lapsed, I escaped into slumber. Out of the silence who call me back to the clamour and cumber? Why should I go with you? What hast thou done in return for my labour, World? What wage had my soul when its strength was thy nei

To a Hero-Worshipper I My life is then a wasted ereme, My song but idle wind Because you merely find In all this woven wealth of rhyme Harsh figures with harsh music wound, The uncouth voice of gorgeous birds, A ruby carcanet of sound, A cloud of lovely words? I am, you say, no magic-rod, No cry oracular, No swart and ominous star, No Sinai-thunder voicing God, I have no burden to my song, No smouldering word instinct with fire, No spell to chase triumphant wrong, No spirit-sweet desire. Mine is not Byron’s lightning spear, Nor Wordsworth’s lucid strain Nor Shelley’s lyric pain, Nor Keats’, th

Bibliographical NOTE COLLECTED POEMS, Volume 5 in SRI AUROBINDO BIRTH CENTENARY LIBRARY, contains all the poems included in SONGS TO MYRTILLA- 1895, URVASIE-1896, AHANA AND OTHER POEMS -1915, LOVE AND DEATH -1921, BAJI PRABHOU -1932, SIX POEMS -1934, TRANSFORMATION AND OTHER POEMS -1941, POEMS -1941, COLLECTED POEMS AND PLAYS -1942, POEMS PAST AND PRESENT -1946, LAST POEMS - 1952, and MORE POEMS - 1957; also ILION - 1957. A few other poems found among Sri Aurobindo's papers are published here for the first time. All poems published after 1950 are reproduced from manuscripts exactly in the form found there. Translations and plays, even when in poetic form, are not

Mother India* India, my India, where first human eyes awoke to heavenly light, All Asia's holy place of pilgrimage, great Motherland of might! World-mother, first giver to humankind of philosophy and sacred lore, Knowledge thou gav'st to man. God-love, works, art, religion's opened door. India, my India, who dare call thee a thing for pity's grace today? Mother of wisdom, worship, works, nurse of the spirit's inward ray! To thy race, 0 India, God himself once sang the Song of Songs divine, Upon thy dust Gouranga danced and drank God-love's mysterious wine, Here the Sannyasin Son of Kings lit up compassion's deathless sun, The youthful Yogin, Shankar. taught thy gospel:

The New Creator* You rose in India, 0 glorious in contemplation, 0 Sun; Illuminator of the vast ocean of life. Clarioning the new Path of an unstumbling progression. You have dug up the immense, sombre bedrock of the earth's ignorance, And sought to unite in eternal marriage the devotion of the heart and the Force of life. We bow to you, Sri Aurobindo, 0 Sun of the New Age, Bringer of the New Light! May India, irradiated by your rays, become the Light-house of the world! To the country which, by losing its soul-mission, had lost the rhythm of its life's advance,