Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Publisher’s Note
Collected Poems comprises all of Sri Aurobindo’s poetical works
with the exception of (1) the epic Savitri, (2) poetic dramas,
(3) most translations into verse of poetry in Sanskrit, Bengali and
other languages, and (4) original poetry in Bengali and Sanskrit.
Savitri is published as volumes 33 and 34 of THE COMPLETE
WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO; the poetic dramas are included in
volumes 3 and 4, Collected Plays and Stories; the poetic translations
are included in volume 5, Translations; and the original
poetry in Sanskrit and Bengali is published in volume 9, Writings
in Bengali and Sanskrit.
The present volume includes all short and narrative poems
in English that Sri Aurobindo published during his lifetime. It
also includes all complete poems found among his manuscripts
after his passing, as well as incomplete poetry that the editors
thought worthy of inclusion.
The poems have been arranged in seven overlapping chronological
parts, which are subdivided into sections representing
different genres and states of completeness. Poems published in
small books during Sri Aurobindo’s lifetime have, for the most
part, been kept together as published.
Sri Aurobindo worked on the poems in this volume over the
course of seven decades. The first one was published in 1883,
when he was ten. A number were composed or revised more
than sixty years later, during the late 1940s.