Kamadeva

A poem by Sri Aurobindo

Kamadeva

When in the heart of the valleys and hid by the roses
The sweet Love lies,
Has he wings to rise to his heavens or in the closes
Lives and dies?

On the peaks of the radiant mountains if we should meet him
Proud and free,
Will he not frown on the valleys? Would it befit him
Chained to be?

Will you then speak of the one as a slave and a wanton,
The other too bare?
But God is the only slave and the only monarch
We declare.

It is God who is Love and a boy and a slave for our passion
He was made to serve;
It is God who is free and proud and the limitless tyrant
Our souls deserve.

Part VI : Baroda and Pondicherry (Circa 1902-1936) > Poems Past and Present

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NOTES FROM EDITOR

Circa 1913. The earliest surviving drafts of this poem and the next one are found in the notebook that contains “The Meditations of Mandavya” (see above, Part Five), the opening of which is dated 1913. In 1932 they were typed out and fourteen years later included in Poems Past and Present. There is one handwritten and one typed manuscript.

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