Life and Death
Life, death, - death, life; the words have led for ages
Our thought and consciousness and firmly seemed
Two opposites; but now long-hidden pages
Are opened, liberating truths undreamed.
Life only is, or death is life disguised, -
Life a short death until by Life we are surprised.
Reference: # 14 in "Les poèmes de Sri
Aurobindo" (bilingual edition)
also in "Collected Poems and Plays, vol 1" - 141
God
Thou who pervadest all the worlds below,
Yet sitst above,
Master of all who work and rule and know,
Servant of Love!
Thou who disdainest not the worm to be
Nor even the clod,
Therefore we know by that humility
That thou art God
Reference: # 17 in "Les poèmes de Sri
Aurobindo" (bilingual edition)
also in "Collected Poems and Plays, vol 1" - 143
The Fear of Death
Death wanders through our lives at will, sweet Death
Is busy with each intake of our breath.
Why do you fear her? Lo, her laughing face
All rosy with the light of jocund grace !
A kind and lovely maiden culling flowers
In a sweet garden fresh with vernal showers,
This is the thing you fear, young portress bright
Who opens to our souls the worlds of light.
Is it because the twisted stem must feel
Pain when the tenderest hands its glory steal?
Is it because the flowerless stalk droops dull
And ghastly now that was so beautiful ?
Or is it the opening portal's horrid jar
That shakes you, feeble souls of courage bare?
Death is but changing of our robes to wait
In wedding garments at the Eternal's gate.
Reference: # 18 in "Les poèmes de Sri
Aurobindo" (bilingual edition)
also in "Collected Poems and Plays, vol 1" - 144
To weep because a glorious sun...
To weep because a glorious sun has set
Which the next morn shall gild the east again;
To mourn that mighty strengths must yield to fate
Which by that force a double strength attain;
To shrink from pain without whose friendly strife
Joy could not be, to make a terror of death
Who smiling beckons us to farther life,
And is a bridge for the persistent breath;
Despair and anguish and the tragic grief
Of dry set eyes, or such disastrous tears
As rend the heart, though meant for its relief,
And all man's ghastly company of fears
Are born of folly that believes the span
Of life the limit of immortal man.
Reference: # 21 in "Les poèmes de Sri
Aurobindo" (bilingual edition)
also in "More Poems" - 18
Sonnets - early period
I have a hundred lives...
I have a hundred lives before me yet
To grasp thee in, O Spirit ethereal,
Be sure I will with heart insatiate
Pursue thee like a hunter through them all.
Thou yet shalt turn back on the eternal way
And with awakened vision watch me come
Smiling a little at errors past and lay
Thy eager hand in mine, its proper home.
Meanwhile made happy by thy happiness
I shall approach thee in things and people dear,
And in thy spirit’s motions half-possess,
Loving what thou hast loved, shall feel thee near,
Until I lay my hands on thee indeed
Somewhere among the stars, as ‘twas decreed.
Reference: # 22 in "Les poèmes de Sri
Aurobindo" (bilingual edition)
also in "More Poems" - 19
Sonnets - early period
written before 1914
Sri Aurobindo
all references published by Sri
Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA
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