Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

278 Calcutta and Chandernagore, 1907 – 1910
SIRIOTH
Abar
I feel, a prohibition. Someone used
A word I could not grasp and called it sin.
LUCIFER
The word is new, even as these things are.
SIRIOTH
I know not who he was. He laughed and said,
“Sin, sin is born into the world, revolt
And change, in Sirioth and in Lucifer,
The evening and the morning star. Rejoice,
O world!” And I beheld as in a dream
Leaping from out thy brain and into mine
A woman beautiful, of grandiose mien,
Yet terrible, alarming and instinct
With nameless menace. And the world was full
With clashing and with cries. It seemed to me
Angels and Gods and men strove violently
To touch her robe, to occupy the place
Her beautiful and ominous feet had trod,
Crying, “Daughter of Lucifer, be ours,
O sweet, adorable and mighty Sin!”
Therefore I came to thee.
LUCIFER
Sirioth, await
Her birth, if she must be. For this I know,
Necessity rules all the infinite world,
And even He perhaps submits unknown
To a compulsion. When the time is ripe,
We will consult once more what we shall do.