Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Songs to Myrtilla 29
For we were strangers then; we knew not Fate
In ambush by the solitary stream
Nor did our sorrows hope to find a mate,
Much less of love or friendship dared we dream.
Rather we thought that loneliness and we
Were wed in marble perpetuity.
For there was none who loved me, no, not one.
Alas, what was there that a man should love?
For I was misery’s last and frailest son
And even my mother bade me homeless rove.
And I had wronged my youth and nobler powers
By weak attempts, small failures, wasted hours.
Therefore I laid my cheek on the chill grass
And murmured, “I am overborne with grief
And joy to richer natures hopes to pass.
Oh me! my life is like an aspen leaf
That shakes but will not fall. My thoughts are blind
And life so bitter that death seems almost kind.
“How am I weary of the days’ increase,
Of the moon’s brightness and the splendid stars,
The sun that dies not. I would be at peace,
Nor blind my soul with images, nor force
My lips to mirth whose later taste is death,
Nor with vain utterance load my weary breath.”
Thus murmured I aloud nor deemed I spoke
To human ears, but you were hidden, sweet,
Behind the willows when my plaining broke
Upon your lonely muse. Ah kindly feet
That brushed the grass in tender haste to bind
Another’s wounds, you were less wise than kind.
You said, “My brother, lift your forlorn eyes;
I am your sister more than you unblest.”