Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

PROLOGUE
Alnuman and the Peri
In Bagdad by Euphrates, Asia’s river,
Euphrates that through deserts must deliver
The voices which of human daybreaks are
Into the dim mysterious surge afar,
The Arabian dwelt; after long travel he.
Regions deserted, wastes of silent sea,
Wide Ocean ignorant of ships and lands
Never made glad by toil of mortal hands
For he had seen, the Indian mountains bare
Save of hard snow and the unbreathed huge air
And swum through giant waters and had heard
In those unhuman forests beast and bird,
The peacock’s cry and tiger’s hoarse appeal
Calling to God for prey, marked the vast wheel
Of monstrous birds shadowing whole countries; he
From Singhal through the long infinity
Of southern floods had steered his shuddering ship
Where unknown winds their lonely tumult keep.
And he had lived with strong and pitiless men,
Nations unhumanized by joy and pain,
And he had tasted grain not sown by man
And drunk strange milk in weird Mazinderan.
Silent he was, as one whom thoughts attend,
Distant, whom stiller hearts than ours befriend.
He lived with memories only; no sweet voice
Made the mute echoes of his life rejoice;
No lovely face of children brought the dawn
Into his home; but silent, calm, withdrawn,
He watched the ways of men with godlike eyes
Released from trammelling affinities.
Yet was he young and many women strove
Vainly to win his marble mind to love.
One day when wind had fled to the cool north
And the strong earth was blind with summer, forth