Silence is all

A poem by Sri Aurobindo


Silence is all

1

Silence is all, say the sages.
Silence watches the work of the ages;
In the book of Silence the cosmic Scribe has written his cosmic pages;
Silence is all, say the sages.

2

What then of the word, O speaker?
What then of the thought, O thinker?
Thought is the wine of the soul and the word is the beaker;
Life is the banquet-table—the soul of the sage is the drinker.

3

What of the wine, O mortal?
I am drunk with the wine as I sit at Wisdom's portal,
Waiting for the Light beyond thought and the Word immortal.
Long I sit in vain at Wisdom's portal.

4

How shalt thou know the Word when it comes, O seeker?
How shalt thou know the Light when it breaks, O witness?
I shall hear the voice of the God within me and grow wiser and meeker;
I shall be the tree that takes in the light as its food, I shall drink its nectar of sweetness.

Silence is All

Silence is All - I

Silence is all, say the sages.
Silence watches the work of the ages;
In the book of Silence the cosmic Scribe has written his cosmic pages:
Silence is all, say the sages.

Silence is All - II

What then of the word, O speaker?
What then of the thought, O thinker?
Thought is the wine of the soul and the word is the beaker;
Life is the banquet-table as the soul of the sage is the drinker.

Silence is All - III

What of the wine, O mortal?
I am drunk with the wine as I sit at Wisdom's portal,
Waiting for the Light beyond thought and the Word immortal.
Long I sit in vain at Wisdom's portal.

Silence is All - IV

How shalt thou know the Word when it comes, O seeker?
How shalt thou know the Light when it breaks, O witness?
I shall hear the voice of the God within me and grow wiser and meeker;
I shall be the tree that takes in the light as its food, I shall drink its nectar of sweetness.



Part VII : Pondicherry (Circa 1927-1947) > Lyrical Poems from Manuscripts (Circa 1934-1947)   




How to read the color-coded changes below? 1. SABCL version : lines with any changes & specific changes 2. CWSA version : lines with any changes & specific changes

Sri-Aurobindo/books/collected-poems/silence-is-all.txt CHANGED
@@ -1,20 +1,20 @@
1
- Silence is all
2
- 1
1
+ Silence is All
2
+ Silence is All - I
3
3
  Silence is all, say the sages.
4
4
  Silence watches the work of the ages;
5
- In the book of Silence the cosmic Scribe has written his cosmic pages;
5
+ In the book of Silence the cosmic Scribe has written his cosmic pages:
6
6
  Silence is all, say the sages.
7
- 2
7
+ Silence is All - II
8
8
  What then of the word, O speaker?
9
9
  What then of the thought, O thinker?
10
10
  Thought is the wine of the soul and the word is the beaker;
11
- Life is the banquet-tablethe soul of the sage is the drinker.
12
- 3
11
+ Life is the banquet-table as the soul of the sage is the drinker.
12
+ Silence is All - III
13
13
  What of the wine, O mortal?
14
14
  I am drunk with the wine as I sit at Wisdom's portal,
15
15
  Waiting for the Light beyond thought and the Word immortal.
16
16
  Long I sit in vain at Wisdom's portal.
17
- 4
17
+ Silence is All - IV
18
18
  How shalt thou know the Word when it comes, O seeker?
19
19
  How shalt thou know the Light when it breaks, O witness?
20
20
  I shall hear the voice of the God within me and grow wiser and meeker;

NOTES FROM EDITOR

No title in the manuscript. 14 January 1947. (The manuscript is dated “January 14, 1946”, but this is probably a slip, as the rest of the contents of the notebook in which the poem is written are from 1947.) One handwritten manuscript.