Narrative Poems Published in 1910     Baji Prabhou   Author's Note   This poem is founded on the historical incident of the heroic self-sacrifice of Baji Prabhou Deshpande, who to cover Shivaji's retreat, held the pass of Rangana for two hours with a small company of men against twelve thousand Moguls. Beyond the single fact of this great exploit there has been no attempt to preserve historical accuracy.   Page – 293   Baji Prabhou   A noon of Deccan with its tyrant glare Oppressed the earth; the hills stood deep in haze, And sweltering athirst the fiel

  Love and Death...contd.   Even sin may be a sumptuous sacrifice Acceptable for unholy fruits. But none Of these the inexorable shadow asks: Alone of gods Death loves not gifts: he visits The pure heart as the stained. Lo, the just man Bowed helpless over his dead, nor all his virtues Shall quicken that cold bosom: near him the wild Marred face and passionate and will not leave Kissing dead lips that shall not chide him more. Life the pale ghost requires: with half thy life Thou mayst protract the thread too early cut Of that delightful spirit  —  half sweet life. O Ruru, lo, thy frail precarious days, And

  Urvasi   CANTO III   So was a goddess won to mortal arms; And for twelve months he held her on the peaks, In solitary vastnesses of hills And regions snow-besieged. There in dim gorge And tenebrous ravine and on wide snows Clothed with deserted space, o'er precipices With the far eagles wheeling under them, Or where large glaciers watch, or under cliffs O'er-murmured by the streaming waterfalls, And later in the pleasant lower hills, He of her beauty world-desired took joy: And all earth's silent sublime spaces passed Into his blood and grew a part of thought. Twelve months in the gre

  The Rishi   King Manu in the former ages of the world, when the Arctic continent still subsisted, seeks knowledge from the Rishi of the Pole, who after long baffling him with conflicting side- lights of the knowledge, reveals to him what it chiefly concerns man to know.   MANU Rishi who trance-held on the mountains old Art slumbering, void Of sense or motion, for in the spirit's hold Of unalloyed Immortal bliss thou dreamst protected! Deep Let my voice glide Into thy dumb retreat and break thy sleep Abysmal. Hear! The frozen snows that heap thy giant bed Ice-cold and clear,

  Index of First Lines   A bare impersonal hush is now my mind A conscious and eternal Power is here A deep enigma is the soul of man A dumb Inconscient drew life's stumbling maze A face on the cold dire mountain peaks A far sail on the unchangeable monotone . . . A flame-wind ran from the gold of the east A godhead moves us to unrealised things A gold moon-raft floats and swings slowly A golden evening, when the thoughtful sun A life of intensities wide, immune A naked and silver-pointed star A noon of Deccan with its tyrant glare A perfect face amid barbarian faces A strong son of

  BOOK IX   Meanwhile moved by their unseen spirits, led by the immortal Phalanxes, who of our hopes and our fears are the reins and the drivers,  — Minds they use as if steam and our bodies like power-driven engines, Leading our lives towards the goal that the gods have prepared for our striving,  — Men upon earth fulfilled their harsh ephemeral labour. But in the Troad the armies clashed on the plain of the Xanthus. Swift from their ships the Argives marched,  —  more swiftly through Xanthus Driving their chariots the Trojans came and Penthesilea Led and Anchises' son and Deiphobus

  BOOK VI   The Book of the Chieftains   Then as from common hills great Pelion rises to heaven So from the throng uprearing a brow that no crown could ennoble, Male and kingly of front like a lion conscious of puissance Rose a form august, the monarch great Agamemnon. Wroth he rose yet throwing a rein on the voice of his passion, Governing the beast and the demon within by the god who is mighty. "Happy thy life and my fame that thou com'st with the aegis of heaven Shadowing thy hoary brows, thou herald of pride and of insult. Well is it too for his days who sent thee that other and nobler

  Poems from Manuscripts Circa 1891 ­ 1898     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-s

'Collected Poems' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 50   Part Two   Baroda Circa 1898 ­ 1902     Complete Narrative Poems     Urvasie   CANTO I   Pururavus from Titan conflict ceased Turned worldwards, through illimitable space Had travelled like a star 'twixt earth and heaven Slowly and brightly. Late our mortal air He breathed; for downward now the hooves divine Trampling out fire with sound before them went, And the great earth rushed up towards him, green. With the first line of dawn he touched the peaks, Nor paused upon those savage heights, bu

  Poems from Manuscripts Circa 1912 ­ 1913     The Descent of Ahana   I 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 nature be satisfied. But I came fleeing;  — Vexed was my soul with the 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 t