BOOK VIII   The Book of the Gods   So on the earth the seed that was sown of the centuries ripened; Europe and Asia, met on their borders, clashed in the Troad. All over earth men wept and bled and laboured, world-wide Sowing Fate with their deeds and had other fruit than they hoped for, Out of desires and their passionate griefs and fleeting enjoyments Weaving a tapestry fit for the gods to admire, who in silence Joy, by the cloud and the sunbeam veiled, and men know not their movers. They in the glens of Olympus, they by the waters of Ida Or in their temples worshipped in vain or with heart-strings of

  Part Six   Baroda and Pondicherry Circa 1902 ­ 1936     Poems Past and Present     Musa Spiritus   O Word concealed in the upper fire, Thou who hast lingered through centuries, Descend from thy rapt white desire, Plunging through gold eternities.   Into the gulfs of our nature leap, Voice of the spaces, call of the Light! Break the seals of Matter's sleep, Break the trance of the unseen height.   In the uncertain glow of human mind, Its waste of unharmonied thronging thoughts, Carve thy epic mountain-lined Crowded wit

  Rishi   Yes, He creates the worlds and heaven above With a single word; And these things being Himself are real, yet Are they like dreams, For He awakes to self He could forget In what He seems. Yet, King, deem nothing vain: through many veils This Spirit gleams. The dreams of God are truths and He prevails. Then all His time Cherish thyself, O King, and cherish men, Anchored in Him.   MANU Upon the silence of the sapphire main Waves that sublime Rise at His word and when that fiat's stilled Are hushed again, So is it, Rishi, with the Spirit concealed, Things and men?  

  Incomplete Narrative Poems Circa 1899 ­ 1902     Khaled of the Sea an Arabian romance   Prologue Canto I Canto II Canto III Canto IV Canto V Canto VI Canto VII Canto VIII Canto IX Canto X Canto XI Canto XII Epilogue Alnuman and the Peri The Story of Alnuman and the Emir's Daughter The Companions of Alnuman 1 The Companions of Alnuman 2 The Companions of Alnuman 3 The First Quest of the Sapphire Crown The Quest of the Gol

  Poems Written as Metrical Experiments     O pall of black Night   O pall of black Night painted with still gold stars, Hang now thy folds, close, clinging against earth's bars, O dim Night! Then Slumber shall come swinging the unseen Gates, and to lands guarded by a screen Of strange light Set out, my soul charioted on a swift dream From earth escape slipping into the unknown gleam, The Ray white.     To the hill-tops of silence   To the hill-tops of silence from over the infinite sea, Golden he came, Armed with the flame, Looked on the world t

  Poems from Manuscripts Circa 1909 ­ 1910   Perfect thy motion   Perfect thy motion ever within me, Master of mind. Grey of the brain, flash of the lightning, Brilliant and blind, These thou linkest, the world to mould, Writing the thought in a scroll of gold Violet lined.   Tablet of brain thou hast made for thy writing, Master divine. Calmly thou writest or full of thy grandeur Flushed as with wine. Then with a laugh thou erasest the scroll, Bringing another, like waves that roll And sink supine.   Page – 285 A Dialogue  

Note on the Texts     Note on the Texts   Sri Aurobindo once wrote that he was "a poet and a politician" first, and only afterwards a philosopher. One might add that he was a poet before he entered politics and a poet after he ceased to write about politics or philosophy. His first published work, written apparently towards the end of 1882, was a short poem. The last writing work he did, towards the end of 1950, was revision of the epic poem Savitri. The results of these sixty-eight years of poetic output are collected in the present volume, with the exception of Savitri, dramatic poetry, poetic translations, and

  Part Four Calcutta and Chandernagore 1907 ­ 1910     Satirical Poem Published in 1907     Reflections of Srinath Paul, Rai Bahadoor, on the Present Discontents   (The Address of a Perspiring Chairman Rendered Faithfully into the Ordinary English Vernacular.)   Councillors, friends, Rai Bahadoors and others, Gentlemen all, my bold and moderate brothers! This Conference's revolutionary course (By revolution, sirs, I mean of course The year's,  —  not anything wicked and Extremist;) Has brought us here, and like a skilful chemist Mixed well to

  The Meditations of Mandavya   I   O joy of gaining all the soul's desire! O stranger joy of the defeat and loss! O heart that yearnest to uplift the world! O fiercer heart that bendest over its pain And drinkst the savour! I will love thee, O Love, Naked or veiled or dreadfully disguised; Not only when thou flatterest my heart But when thou tearst it. Thy sweet pity I love And mother's care for creatures, for the joys I love thee that the lives of things possess, And love thee for the torment of our pains; Nor cry, as some, against thy will, nor say Thou art not. Easy is the lov

  Poems   Transformation   My breath runs in a subtle rhythmic stream; It fills my members with a might divine: I have drunk the Infinite like a giant's wine. Time is my drama or my pageant dream. Now are my illumined cells joy's flaming scheme And changed my thrilled and branching nerves to fine Channels of rapture opal and hyaline For the influx of the Unknown and the Supreme.   I am no more a vassal of the flesh, A slave to Nature and her leaden rule; I am caught no more in the senses' narrow mesh. My soul unhorizoned widens to measureless sight, My body is God's happy living tool, My