'Translations' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 30 Anandamath   THE FIRST THIRTEEN CHAPTERS   Prologue   A WIDE interminable forest. Most of the trees are sals, but other kinds are not wanting. Treetop mingling with treetop, foliage melting into foliage, the interminable lines progress; without crevice, without gap, without even a way for the light to enter, league after league and again league after league the boundless ocean of leaves advances, tossing wave upon wave in the wind. Underneath, thick darkness; even at midday the light is dim and uncertain; a seat of terrific gloom. There the foot of man never treads; there except the illimitable rustle of the leaves and the cry

  Selected Poems of Horo Thacoor   1   (The soul beset by God wishes to surrender itself.)   Who is this with smeared limbs Of sandal wreathed with forest blossom? For a beauty in him gleams Earth bears not on her mortal bosom.   He his hair with bloom has crowned, And many bees come murmuring, swarming. Who is he that with sweet sound Arrests our feet, our hearts alarming?   Daily came I to the river, Daily passed these boughs of blessing, But beneath their shadow never Saw such beauty heart-caressing.   Like a cloud yet moist with rain His hue is, robe of masquerader.

The Line of Raghou   TWO RENDERINGS OPENING OF THE   To the Two whose beings are involved together like word with sense for the boon of needed word and sense, to the Parents of the World I bow, the God above all Gods, the Goddess Mountain-born. Of little substance is my genius, mighty is the race that sprang from the Sun, yet would I fondly launch in my poor raft over the impassable sea. Dull of wit, yet seeking the poet's crown of glory I shall win for my meed mockery alone, like a dwarf in his greed lifting up arms for the high fruit that is a giant's prize. And yet I have an access into that mighty race, even through the door of song the

  Opening of the Odyssey   Sing to me, Muse, of the man many-counselled who far through the world's ways Wandering was tossed after Troya he sacked, the divine stronghold, Many cities of men he beheld, learned the minds of their dwellers, Many the woes in his soul he suffered driven on the waters, Fending from fate his life and the homeward course of his comrades. Them even so he saved not for all his desire and his striving; Who by their own infatuate madness piteously perished, Fools in their hearts! for they slew the herds the deity pastured, Helios high-climbing; but he from them reft their return and the daylight.

I Dreamed a Dream   I dreamed a dream, O friend. The wedding was fixed for the morrow. And He, the Lion, Madhava, the young Bull whom they call the master of radiances, He came into the hall of wedding decorated with luxuriant palms.   I dreamed a dream, O friend. And the throng of the Gods was there with Indra, the Mind Divine, at their head. And in the shrine they declared me bride and clad me in a new robe of affirmation. And Inner Force is the name of the goddess who adorned me with the garland of the wedding.   I dreamed a dream, O friend. There were beatings of the drum and blowings of the conch; and under the canopy hung

  Karma (Radha's Complaint)   Love, but my words are vain as air! In my sweet joyous youth, a heart untried, Thou tookst me in Love's sudden snare, Thou wouldst not let me in my home abide.   And now I have nought else to try, But I will make my soul one strong desire And into Ocean leaping die: So shall my heart be cooled of all its fire.   Die and be born to life again As Nanda's son, the joy of Braja's girls, And I will make thee Radha then, A laughing child's face set with lovely curls.   Then I will love thee and then leave; Under the codome's boughs when thou goest by Bound to the water morn

The Book of the Wild Forest   Then, possessing his soul, Rama entered the great forest, the forest Dandaka with difficulty approachable by men and beheld a circle there of hermitages of ascetic men; a refuge for all living things, with ever well-swept courts and strewn with many forms of beasts and swarming with companies  of birds and holy, high & temperate sages graced those homes. The high of energy approached them unstringing first his mighty bow, and hey beheld him like a rising moon & with wonder in their looks gazed at the fabric of his beauty and its glory and softness and garbed  race and at Vydehie too with unfalling eyelids they gazed and Lakshm

  APPENDIX I Opening of Chapter VII   KRISHNA When thou hast cloven to me with thy whole self, O Partha, taking refuge in me & practising Yoga, hearken how then thou shalt know me without doubt and without imperfection. For I will declare to thee without reserve the whole result of Philosophy & Science which when thou hast known there is nought else that is left to be known in this existence. Among many thousands of men hardly one striveth after perfection and of those even that strive & are spiritually whole, hardly one knoweth me without misprision.      

Kulasekhara Alwar   Refuge   (Translated from the Tamil verses of Kulasekhara Alwar, the Chera king and saint)   Though thou shouldst not spare me the anguish of the world, yet I have no refuge but thy feet. O Lord of the City of the wise begirt by gardens full of sweet flowers, if, in a keen-edged wrath, the mother cast off the babe, what can it do but cry for the mother's love? I am like that babe. (1)   If the man whom she loves subject her to contumely, the high-born wife still clings to him; for he is her chosen lord. And I, too, O Lord of the City of the wise whose walls reach up to Heaven, I will ever praise thy victorious feet

'Translations' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 30   Section Three   Chittaranjan Das   Songs of the Sea   I   O thou unhoped-for elusive wonder of the skies, Stand still one moment! I will lead thee and bind With music to the chambers of my mind. Behold how calm today this sea before me lies And quivering with what tremulous heart of dreams In the pale glimmer of the faint moonbeams. If thou at last art come indeed, O mystery, stay Woven by song into my heart-beats from this day.   Stand, goddess, yet! Into this anthem of the seas With the pure strain of my full voiceless heart Some rhythm of the rhythmless, some part Of