PRALAYA THE moon is older than the sea it sways, And One more vast than shadow-game It plays, And all suns gathered are a glow-worm to the blaze Of the Fiery Essence of the world. As gulph lies deeper than the learner's line, As Truth breathes fairer than its paltry sign, All lesser than the Whole shall taste proud noon's decline And be within Pralaya furled. October 8, 1936. Page-210

WINGS ON wings of faith mount up Toward the solar fire, By dint of eagle feathers And wings that shall not tire. Dread less the wings of soaring, Steadfast the eyes that gaze Ever upon that brightness Of truth-begotten rays. Earth no more is master ; Shadows have lost their sway : O arrow-flight unswerving, Far on truth-free domed way I February 26, 1936. Page-158

ALL MEN DIE (Translated from Malherbe). MUST be thy .grief, Duperrier, unending, Or what the sad mind enfold, The uttered thoughts a father's love is sending, Be a tale that is never told ? By our mortal lot thy daughter tom bward driven— Is such exceeding pain A labyrinth from whence thy thoughts grief-riven Find not their way again ? I, being most mindful of her girlhood's charm, To assuage thy sufferings Have tried not, like a friend who'd cause thee harm, To gauge them but slight things. Seen in a world which to fairest shapes is giving Still the most heavy of dooms, A rose, hers wa

THE SINGLE PRAYER ON tiptoe dimly I now take my way Through the sweet-scented forests of a world I cannot claim, in which I have no say, —From which even now I may in thought be hurled. I will not break one twig lest sap should bleed, Nor brush the leaves that quiver and shrink and fold ; Not one dream-petal from the future deed By my dream-roving shall be earthward rolled. I'd step too lightly for the sleeping dew To feel an alien presence and depart. — Grant that the dawn-clear joy may tremble through, Limn the soft-splendoured wideness of his heart. February 13, 1938. Page-296

RED LOTUS (Sri Aurobindo's Consciousness) THAT living Lotus, petal by petal, unfolding, Which through the mists of this avidya looms, Vicegerent of the Sun, nowise withholding The light we lack in Maya's nether glooms. When spirit-sense to the last high peak gyring Finds all Thy mountain-bud aflame with rose— Touched by the eager hues of Dawn's aspiring— What raptured Silence watches Thee unclose! Then the vast span of those Truth-petals reaching To the utmost arc of Being's finitude With vibrant answer to dark's wan beseeching Transforms a world, from Thy grave beauty hued. O puissant heart ami

FARTHEST SEA DOWN the nesh pathway into the wood, into the pixie dell, We had passed the turn where an elmtree stood and a rathe-ripe harvest fell On the withered fern and the phantom leaves of yesterautumn's revel ; Washed by the waves that the windflower breathes across the glimmering level Green sea that laves the forbidden shore in the rune of the white flower-foam, Was the heart of the dene—and the shimmering floor decked for the dance of the gnome. July 13, 1932. Page-22

A SONG OF RETURNING GLIMMER of day beam Harbingers night's end Swiftening of the stream Looses the bubbles penned Against their foam-white leap fore kenned. O for a sword To cleave the murk asunder ; O for a heart assured Amidst the torrent's thunder To balk that Time-race thief of plunder. Out of a questant morrow Curlews drifting by Send ekings of sorrow Across the moorland sky— And whimbrels pipe strange sevenfold cry. If there be so much sadness In the fore-end of the day, What ort or lag of gladness Is lapped in noontide's ray ?— O scan the silver salmon's way. Doffed was t

THE INHOSPITABLE THE ship weighs anchor, voyages here and there ; The Port beyond the last port it shall seek Is harbour less, inhospitably, bare. The Nameless Name no finite tongue can speak, The Single with which nothing can compare, The All-Wealth which the mind makes poor and bleak,— Through that last pellucid Ether the eyes most blankly stare. October 9, 1936. Page-212

THEY CAME THEY came—the woodland water Was lightly .shadowed By the gauzy tumult of their wings. Then tiny shrillings and such little laughters As hardly shook or stirred the air-built web Of attercops upon the bramble thorn. It was some distillation from the autumn, When the un havened windings of hearts' loneliness Are trembling on the verge of bodiment In those white-mist-drenched mornings Where the gossamer is dew-silvered Among still mushrooms on the upland field. April 5, 1936 Page-180

THE AGED QEEN HELEN CROSSES THE COURTYARD (The speakers are PENELEUS, one of the former suitors of HELEN, and NELIBES and METHYMNAEUS) M. "I saw the Queen two sun downs back File with her shadow in the evening light That filled the outer courtyard." P. " She filed with more than that, Methymnaeus ; With half-dissolving memories of Troy, Converging whispers of far-off renown, A shadowy splendour that her ruined frame Lets faintly through." N. " But she is lame, dim-sighted, And half oblivious of this changing show." M. " She is not very sad or very gay." P.