Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

256 Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 – 1909
Singing in the orchards
When the shadows fall,
With thy crooning anklets
To my heart that call,
By the darkening window
Like a slender fire,
With the night behind thee,
Daughter of desire!
Open wide the doorway,
Bid my love come in
With the night behind her
And the dawn within.
Take, O radiant fingers,
Heart and hands of me,
Hide them in thy bosom,
O felicity!
To the Ganges
Hearken, Ganges, hearken, thou that sweepest golden to the sea,
Hearken, Mother, to my voice.
From the feet of Hari with thy waters pure thou leapest free,
Waters colder-pure than ice.
On Himaloy’s grandiose summits upright in his cirque of stones
Shiva sits in breathless air,
Where the outcast seeks his refuge, where the demon army moans,
Ganges erring through his hair.
Down the snowwhite mountains speeding, the immortal peaks and cold,
Crowd thy waves untouched by man.
From Gungotry through the valleys next their icy tops were rolled,
Bursting through Shivadry ran.