Brilliant, crouching, slouching, what crept through the green heart
of the forest,
Gleaming eyes and mighty chest and soft soundless paws of grandeur
and murder?
The wind slipped through the leaves as if afraid lest its voice and
the noise of its steps perturb the pitiless Splendour,
Hardly daring to breathe. But the great beast crouched and crept,
and crept and crouched a last time, noiseless, fatal,
Till suddenly death leaped on the beautiful wild deer as it drank
Unsuspecting from the great pool in the forest's coolness and shadow,
And it fell and, torn, died remembering its mate left sole in the
deep woodland, -
Destroyed, the mild harmless beauty by the strong cruel beauty in
Nature.
But a day may yet come when the tiger crouches and leaps no more in
the dangerous heart of the forest,
As the mammoth shakes no more the plains of Asia;
Still then shall the beautiful wild deer drink from the coolness of
great pools in the leaves’ shadow.
The mighty perish in their might;
The slain survive the slayer.
1930, revised 1942
Sri Aurobindo
Reference: # 155 in "Les poèmes de Sri
Aurobindo" (bilingual edition)
also in "Collected Poems and Plays" - 374
and "Collected Poems" - 569
all published by Sri
Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA
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