SITE OF SRI AUROBINDO & THE MOTHER
      
Home Page | Workings | Works of Sri Aurobindo | Collected Poems

Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

CWSA.- Volume 2

Part Seven. Pondicherry
Incomplete Poems from Manuscripts, c. 1927 – 1947

The Inconscient1 and the Traveller Fire

 

The Inconscient2

Flame that3 invadest my empire of sorrow wordless and sombre,

Arrow of azure light golden-winged, barbed with delight,

Who was it aimed thee into this4 crucified Soul that for ever

Passions and beats in the womb of a universe built for its tomb?

Lo, I am5 Death and I live6 in the boundless cavern of Nature7,

Death8 who cannot die, Shadow9 of Eternity,

Vainly I burn10 in stars11 as they err12 through a13 Void without feature,

Scintillant forms of14 my15 Nought vast without life, without thought.

O all my worlds16, you who17 glitter and wander, God has devised you18

Burning nails in my heart, stones of my prisonhouse. God,

Architect tranquil19 relentless and mighty, built and incised20 you21,

Clamped with you22 Time, his road towards23 Nothingness, Death’s deep24 abode.

I the Inconscient have passioned for life and its beat and its glory,–25

Life that26 Death might die. O27, was it life that He gave me?

Pulse28 of my darkness, reflex and nerve-beat! More hopeless I suffer29,

Racked30 by the flame an obscure will in me kindled to save me.

Life?31 or a sorrowful throb of my32 Matter teaching it anguish,

Teaching it hope and desire trod down by Time in the mire?33

Life? this joy34 that weeps for35 its briefness, this foot-path for sorrow36?

Life, this embrace of a death treasuring some transient breath?

Boons of a shortlived sweetness twisted and turned into torture,–

Hope more blind than my Night, desire and its deadly delight,

Bliss that is small on the wings of a moment, vivid and fragile,

Love grown a kinsman to hate, will made an engine of Fate37.

Torn with38 my anguish I cried39 out for knowledge, light on my midnight,

Light on my40 symbols of dream and a power in the Light to redeem41.

Yea, was it knowledge42 He gave me43, this thought that is tangled in darkness,

Ignorance reading44 its own record in45 sense and in46 stone?

Ignorance tracing47 its plans48 and its dreams on a canvas49 of error!

Mind this half-light in me born, like the glow of a morrowless morn?50

Autographs,51 hieroglyphs of the reflexes life has52 engendered,

Spasms of matter caught into53 luminous54 figments55 of thought.

Nay56, is not God but myself, Death’s euphemism fictioned immortal,

Nothing eternalised, bare, yet as if one who is None,

Death yet for ever alive, an Inconscient troubled with seemings,

Matter tormented with life, a Void with its forces at strife?

O by my thought to escape from myself out of thought into Nothing –

Thus I had hoped to dissolve, rapt in some tensionless57 Bliss,

Rending the Illusion I made to be immobile58 and formless and timeless –

This dream too now I leave, long not even to cease.

Into my numb59 discontent I have lapsed of a universe barren,

Goalless, condemned to survive, a spirit60 of matter in pain.

Now have I known myself as this61 boundless finite, this62 darkness63

Shadowily self-lit, grown content to strive without end and64 in vain.

Fire that travellest from immortality, spark of the Timeless,

Why hast thou come to my night, an unbearable65 Idol of Light?

Ah from what happier universe strayedst thou kindling my torpor?

Thou66, O spirit of Light, perturb67 not my vastness of Night.

 

Earlier edition of this work: Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library: Set in 30 volumes.- Volume 5.- Collected Poems.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Asram, 1972.- 625 p.

1 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: Death

Back

2 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: Death

Back

3 Fire who (the variant is mentioned in 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5)

Back

4 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: my | the

Back

5 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: I who am

Back

6 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: and live

Back

7 Matter (the variant is mentioned in 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5)

Back

8 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: I am Death

Back

9 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: A Shadow

Back

10 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: throb

Back

11 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: in the stars

Back

12 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: that err

Back

13 2009 ed. CWSA, vol.2: the

Back

14 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: in

Back

15 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: a

Back

16 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: O these stars | All these worlds

Back

17 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: that

Back

18 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: them

Back

19 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: griefless

Back

20 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: raised

Back

21 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: them

Back

22 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: them

Back

23 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: to

(towards — as variant in footnotes)

Back

24 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: grim

Back

25 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5:

Fire of God, I passioned for life and have gathered but ashes –

Back

26 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: so that

Back

27 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: Yea

Back

28 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: Glow

Back

29 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: devoured the devourer | devoured its devourer

Back

30 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: Tortured

Back

31 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: Life was | Life is

Back

32 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: this

Back

33 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: out too soon in the mire,

Back

34 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: the frail joy

Back

35 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: regrets

Back

36 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: life the long sorrow

Back

37 In 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5:

–

Love the close kinsman to hate and its freedom but bedfellow|comrade of Fate.

and in footnotes as alternative stanza:

Boons for a shortlived sweetness were given me – hours that were tortures,

Hope more blind than my night, desire for deadly delight,

Joy that outlasts not its moment, vivid and barren,

Love a close kinsman to hate, freedom a minister of Fate.

Back

38 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: Then in

Back

39 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: reached

Back

40 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: its

Back

41 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5:

strength of the thought to redeem

Back

42 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: light

Back

43 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: permitted

Back

44 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: sees by

Back

45 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: of

Back

46 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: of

Back

47 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: building

Back

48 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: schemes

Back

49 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: basis

Back

50 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5:

This was the mind I had sought fashioned out of His nought.

Back

51 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: Alphabet

Back

52 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: had

Back

53 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: in

Back

54 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: a luminous

Back

55 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: figment

Back

56 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: Lo

Back

57 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: featureless

Back

58 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: immutable

Back

59 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: numb

Back

60 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: spiral

Back

61 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: thy

Back

62 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: thy

Back

63 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: darkness without end

Back

64 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: and

Back

65 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: unbearable

Back

66 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: Pass

Back

67 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: now perturb

Back