Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

316 Calcutta and Chandernagore, 1907 – 1910
Save the great name until his spirit passed.
Then the grim lords forgot their savage calm.
A cry arose, ‘Our queen!’ and I was caught
From breast to breast of wild affection; all
Crowded upon me kissing feet and hands,
Recording silent oaths of love. Secure,
Alone in this wild faithful barbarous world,
I ruled by weakness over rugged hearts,
A little queen adored, — until at length
Thou camest. Rumour and wide-mouthed alarm
Running before thy chariot-wheels thou cam’st,
Defeat and death thy envoys and a cry:
O Manipurians, Manipurians, arm!
Some god incensed invades you, — surely a god
Incensed and fatal, for his bowstring huge
Sounds like the crack of breaking worlds and thick
His arrows as the sleet descends of doom
When the great Serpent wakes in wrath. Behind
That cry the crash of hostile advent came,
Thy chariot caked with mire and blood, its roof
Bristling and shattered from the fight, thy steeds
White with the spume of leagues, though yet they neighed
Lusting for speed and battle, and in the car
Thy grandiose form o’ertowering common mould,
While victory shone from eyes where thunder couched
Above his parent lightning. Swift to arms
My warriors sprang, dismayed but faithful, swift
Around me grew a hedge of steel. Enraged,
Thy coursers shod with wind rushed foaming on
And in with crash and rumour stormed the car
To that wide stone-paved hall; there loudly paused,
While thunderous challenge of the stamping hooves
Claimed all the place. Clanging thou leapedst down,
Urjoon, Gandiva in thy threatening grasp.
Then I beheld thy face, then rose, then stretched
My arms out, pausing not to think what god
Compelled me from my throne. But war came in