Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

242 Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 – 1909
“Ephemeral creatures, for the future live,”
She bids us, “gather in for unborn men
Knowledge and joy, and forfeit, nor complain,
The present which alone is yours to give.”
Man’s immortality she first denies
And then assumes what she rejects, made blind
By sudden knowledge, the majestic Mind
Within her smiling at her sophistries.
Not so shall Truth extend her flight sublime,
Pass from the poor beginnings she has made
And with the splendour of her wings displayed
Range through the boundaries of Space and Time.
Clamp her not down to her material finds!
She shall go further. She shall not reject
The light within, nor shall the dialect
Of unprogressive pedants bar men’s minds.
We seek the Truth and will not pause nor fear.
Truth we will have and not the sophist’s pleas;
Animals, we will take our grosser ease,
Or, spirits, heaven’s celestial music hear.
The intellect is not all; a guide within
Awaits our question. He it was informed
The reason, He surpasses; and unformed
Presages of His mightiness begin.
Nor mind submerged, nor self subliminal,
But the great Force that makes the planets wheel
Through ether and the sun in flames reveal
His godhead, is in us perpetual.
That Force in us is body, that is mind,
And what is higher than the mind is He.