Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

172 Baroda, c. 1898 – 1902
Buried, forgot, but murmuring the name.
Let us not lose then, O Chitrangada,
One moment’s possibility of love
Which being squandered, we shall then regret.
Fate that united once, may when she will
Divorce, but cannot the sweet meaning spoil
Of these warm kisses.” He embraced her wholly
Confounding her with bliss; so for that time
The Shadow fled and joy forgot his close.
But one pale morn Chitrangada rose wan
And to the stable through the grey hushed place
Descending, with her little deft hands yoked
Urjoona’s coursers to the car, — persuading
Thrust in their whinnying mouths the bit, fastened
The traces, harmonised the reins, then led
Into the sad dim court trampling his steeds;
And with a strange deep look of love and hate
Caressing said, faint with her unshed tears:
“You brought him here who now shall bear away,
O horses yoked to fate. How often yet
Will you deceive us shaking wide your manes
And trampling over women’s hearts with hooves
Thunderous towards battle? Yet your breed perhaps
Shall bring him to my wrinkled age.” And now
Urjoona came: his mailed and resonant tread
Rang in her very heart, his corslet blazed
Towards the chill skies and his heroic form
Seemed to consent with the surrounding hills.
But in the marble face and eyes august
The light of his tremendous fate had dawned
Like a great sunrise. Calm her shuddering body
He took into his bosom and with no word
Under the witnessing, unmovèd heavens
Kissed her pale lips. Then to his car he rose.
And now she did not weep, but silently
Took and returned his kiss. So he went forth.
Thundering the great wheels jarred upon the stones