BOOK VII   The Book of the Woman   So to the voice of their best they were bowed and obeyed undebating; Men whose hearts were burning yet with implacable passion Felt Odysseus' strength and rose up clay to his counsels. King Agamemnon rose at his word, the wide-ruling monarch, Rose at his word the Cretan and Locrian, Thebes and Epirus, Nestor rose, the time-tired hoary chief of the Pylians. Round Agamemnon the Atreid Europe surged in her chieftains Forth from their tent on the shores of the Troad, splendid in armour, Into the golden blaze of the sun and the race of the sea-winds. Fierce and clear

'Collected Poems' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 50   Ilion Bk-I   What say the vaunters of Greece to the virgin Penthesilea?" High was the Argive's answer confronting the mighty in Troya. "Princes of Pergama, whelps of the lion who roar for the mellay, Suffer my speech! It shall ring like a spear on the hearts of the mighty. Blame not the herald; his voice is an impulse, an echo, a channel Now for the timbrels of peace and now for the drums of the battle. And I have come from no cautious strength, from no half-hearted speaker, But from the Phthian. All know him! Proud is his soul as his fortunes, Swift as his sword and his spear are

  Urvasi   CANTO IV   Through darkness and immense dim night he went Mid phantom outlines of approaching trees, And all the day in green leaves, till he came To peopled forests and sweet clamorous streams And marvellous shining meadows where he lived With Urvasie his love in seasons old. These like domestic faces waiting were. He knew each wind-blown tree, each different field; And could distinguish all the sounding rivers Each by its own voice and peculiar flow. Here were the happy shades where they had lain Inarmed and murmuring, here half-lustrous groves Still voiceful with a sacred sou

'Collected Poems' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 50   Ahana     Ahana   (Ahana, the Dawn of God, descends on the world where amid the strife and trouble of mortality the Hunters of Joy, the Seekers after Knowledge, the Climbers in the quest of Power are toiling up the slopes or waiting in the valleys. As she stands on the mountains of the East, voices of the Hunters of Joy are the first to greet her.)   Vision delightful alone on the hills whom the silences cover, Closer yet lean to mortality; human, stoop to thy lover. Wonderful, gold like a moon in the square of the sun where thou strayest Glimmers thy face amid crystal purities; might

'Collected Poems' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 50   Part Three Baroda and Bengal Circa 1900 ­ 1909     Poems from Ahana and Other Poems     Invitation   With wind and the weather beating round me Up to the hill and the moorland I go. Who will come with me? Who will climb with me? Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow?   Not in the petty circle of cities Cramped by your doors and your walls I dwell; Over me God is blue in the welkin, Against me the wind and the storm rebel.   I sport with solitude here in my regions, Of misad

  A Child's Imagination   O thou golden image, Miniature of bliss, Speaking sweetly, speaking meetly! Every word deserves a kiss.   Strange, remote and splendid Childhood's fancy pure Thrills to thoughts we cannot fathom, Quick felicities obscure.   When the eyes grow solemn Laughter fades away, Nature of her mighty childhood Recollects the Titan play;   Woodlands touched by sunlight Where the elves abode, Giant meetings, Titan greetings, Fancies of a youthful God.   These are coming on thee In thy secret thought; God remembers in thy bosom All th

  BOOK III   The Book of the Assembly   But as the nation beset betwixt doom and a shameful surrender Waited mute for a voice that could lead and a heart to encourage, Up in the silence deep Laocoon rose up, far-heard,  — Heard by the gods in their calm and heard by men in their passion  — Cloud-haired, clad in mystic red, flamboyant, sombre, Priam's son Laocoon, fate-darkened seer of Apollo. As when the soul of the Ocean arises rapt in the dawning And mid the rocks and the foam uplifting the voice of its musings Opens the chant of its turbulent harmonies, so rose the far-borne V

'Collected Poems' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 50   Songs to Myrtilla   Songs to Myrtilla   GLAUCUS Sweet is the night, sweet and cool As to parched lips a running pool; Sweet when the flowers have fallen asleep And only moonlit rivulets creep Like glow-worms in the dim and whispering wood, To commune with the quiet heart and solitude. When earth is full of whispers, when No daily voice is heard of men, But higher audience brings The footsteps of invisible things, When o'er the glimmering tree-tops bowed The night is leaning on a luminous cloud, And always a melodious breeze Sings secret in the weird and charmed trees, Pleasant 't

Chapter XII   The Office and Limitations of the Reason   IF THE reason is not the sovereign master of our being nor even intended to be more than an intermediary or minister, it cannot succeed in giving a perfect law to the other estates of the realm, although it may impose on them a temporary and imperfect order as a passage to a higher perfection. The rational or intellectual man is not the last and highest ideal of manhood, nor would a rational society be the last and highest expression of the possibilities of an aggregate human life, — unless indeed we give to this word, reason, a wider meaning than it now possesses and include

Chapter VIII   Civilisation and Barbarism   ONCE WE have determined that this rule of perfect individuality and perfect reciprocity is the ideal law for the individual, the community and the race and that a perfect union and even oneness in a free diversity is its goal, we have to try to see more clearly what we mean when we say that self-realisation is the sense, secret or overt, of individual and of social development. As yet we have not to deal with the race, with mankind as a unity; the nation is still our largest compact and living unit. And it is best to begin with the individual, both because of his nature we have a completer and n