A poem by Sri Aurobindo
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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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
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.
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