A trifling unit in a boundless plan
Amidst the enormous insignificance
Of the unpeopled cosmos' fire-whirl dance,
Earth as by accident engendered man,
A creature of his own grey ignorance,
A mind half-shadow and half-gleam, a breath
That wrestles, captive in a world of death,
To live some lame brief years. Yet his advance,
Attempt of a divinity within,
A consciousness in the inconscient Night,
To realise its own supernal Light
Confronts the ruthless forces of the Unseen.
Aspiring to godhead from insensible clay
He travels slow-footed towards the eternal day.
Sri Aurobindo
Reference: # 78 in "Les poèmes de Sri
Aurobindo" (bilingual edition)
also in "Last Poems" - 47
all published by Sri
Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA
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