Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Poems from Manuscripts 257
In Benares’ stainless city by defilement undefiled
Ghauts and temples lightly touched
With thy fingers as thou ranst, laughed low in pureness like a child
To his mother’s bosom clutched.
Where the steps of Rama wandered, where the feet of Krishna came,
There thou flowest, there thy hand
Clasps us, Bhagirathie, Jahnavie or Gunga, and thy name
Holier makes the Aryans’ land.
But thou leavest Aryavurtha, but thou leapest to the seas
In thy hundred mighty streams;
Nor in the unquiet Ocean vast thy grandiose journeyings cease,
Mother, say thy children’s dreams.
Down thou plungest through the Ocean, far beneath its oozy bed
In Patala’s leaden gloom
Moaning o’er her children’s pain our mother, Ganges of the dead,
Leads our wandering spirits home.
Mighty with the mighty still thou dwelledst, goddess high and pure;
Iron Bhîshma was thy son,
Who against ten thousand rushing chariots could in war endure;
Many heroes fled from one.
Devavrath the mighty, Bhîshma with his oath of iron power,
Smilingly who gave up full
Joy of human life and empire, that his father’s wish might flower
And his father’s son might rule.
Who were these that thronged thereafter? wherefore came these puny hearts
Apter for the cringing slave,
Wrangling, selfish, weak and treacherous, vendors of their nobler parts,
Sorry food for pyre and grave?