Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

498 Pondicherry, c. 1910 – 1920
AHANA
Rush I can hear as of wings in the void and the march of a nation.
Shapes of old mightiness visit me; movements of ancient elation
Stride and return in my soul, and it turns like an antelope fleeing.
What was the cry that thou drewst from my bosom, Lord of my being?
Lo, their souls are cast on my soul like forms on a mirror!
Hark, they arise, they aspire, they are near, and I shudder with terror,
Quake with delight and attraction. Lord of the worlds, dost Thou leave me
Bare for their seizing? of peace and of strength in a moment bereave me?
Long hast Thou kept me safe in Thy soul, but I lose my defences.
Thought streams fast on me; joy is awake and the strife of the senses.
Ah, their clutch on my feet! my thighs are seized by them! Legions
Mighty around me they stride; I feel them filling the regions.
Seest Thou their hands on my locks? Wilt Thou suffer it, Master of Nature?
I am Thy force and Thy strength; wilt Thou hand me enslaved to Thy
creature?
Headlong they drag me down to their dreadful worlds far below me.
What will you do with me there, O you mighty Ones? Speak to me, show me
One of your faces, teach me one of your names while you ravish,
Dragging my arms and my knees while you hurry me. Tell me what lavish
Ecstasy, show me what torture immense you seize me for. Quittance
When shall I have from my labour? What term has your tyranny, Titans?
Masters fierce of your worlds who would conquer the higher creation,
What is your will with me, giants of violence, lords of elation?
VOICES
In the beginning of things when nought was abroad but the waters,
Ocean stirred with longing his mighty and deep-bosomed daughters.
Out of that longing we rose from the voiceless heart of the Ocean;
Candid, unwarmed, O Ahana, the spaces empty of motion
Stretched, enormous, silent, void of the breath of thy greatness,
Hushed to thy sweetnesses, fixed in the calm of their ancient sedateness.
We are the gods who have mapped out Time and measured its spaces,
Raised there our mansions of pride and planted our amorous places.
Trembling like flowers appeared in the void the immense constellations;
Gods grew possessed of their heavens, earth rose with her joy-haunted
nations.