All poems in English including sonnets, lyrical poems, narrative poems, and metrical experiments in various forms.
Poems
This volume consists of all poems in English including sonnets, lyrical poems, narrative poems, and metrical experiments in various forms. All such poems published by Sri Aurobindo during his lifetime are included here, as well as poems found among his manuscripts after his passing. Sri Aurobindo worked on these poems over the course of seven decades. The first one was published in 1883 when he was ten; a number of poems were written or revised more than sixty years later, in the late 1940s.
THEME/S
Do you remember, Love, that sunset pale When from near meadows sad with mist the breeze Sighed like a feverous soul and with soft wail The ghostly river sobbed among the trees? I think that Nature heard our misery Weep to itself and wept for sympathy.
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For we were strangers then; we knew not Fate In ambush by the solitary stream Nor did our sorrows hope to find a mate, Much less of love or friendship dared we dream. Rather we thought that loneliness and we Were wed in marble perpetuity.
For there was none who loved me, no, not one. Alas, what was there that a man should love? For I was misery's last and frailest son And even my mother bade me homeless rove. And I had wronged my youth and nobler powers By weak attempts, small failures, wasted hours.
Therefore I laid my cheek on the chill grass And murmured, "I am overborne with grief And joy to richer natures hopes to pass. Oh me! my life is like an aspen leaf That shakes but will not fall. My thoughts are blind And life so bitter that death seems almost kind.
"How am I weary of the days' increase, Of the moon's brightness and the splendid stars, The sun that dies not. I would be at peace, Nor blind my soul with images, nor force My lips to mirth whose later taste is death, Nor with vain utterance load my weary breath."
Thus murmured I aloud nor deemed I spoke To human ears, but you were hidden, sweet, Behind the willows when my plaining broke Upon your lonely muse. Ah kindly feet That brushed the grass in tender haste to bind Another's wounds, you were less wise than kind.
You said, "My brother, lift your forlorn eyes; I am your sister more than you unblest."
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I looked upon your face, the book of sighs And index to incurable unrest. I rose and kissed you, sweet. Your lips were warm And drew my heart out like a witch's charm.
We parted where the sacred spires arose In silent power above the silent street. I saw you mid the rose-trees, O white rose, Linger a moment, then the dusk defeat My eyes, and, listening, heard your footsteps fade On the sad leaves of the autumnal glade.
And were you happy, sweet? In me I know— For either in my blood the autumn sang His own pale requiem or that new sweet glow Failed in the light of bitter knowledge—rang A voice that said, "Behold the loves too pure To live, the joy that never shall endure."
This too I know, nor is my hope so bright But that it sees its autumn cold and sere Attending with a pale and solemn light Beyond the gardens of the vernal year. Yet will I not my weary heart constrain But take you, sweet, and sweet surcease from pain.
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