Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

522 Pondicherry, c. 1910 – 1920
His thoughts were with a face his dreams had seen
Diviner than the jasmine’s moon-flaked glow;
He listened to a name his dreams had learned
Sweeter than passion of the crooning bird.
Its delicate syllables yearning through his mind
Repeated longingly the soft-wreathed call,
As if some far-off bright forgotten queen
From whom his heart had wandered through the world,
Were summoning back to her her truant thrall,
Luring him with the music of her name.
But soon some look on him he seemed to feel.
The summit self-uplifted to the sky
Mounting the air in act to climb and join
Heaven’s sapphire longing with earth’s green unease
Drew his far gaze, which conned as for a thought
The undecipherable charactery
Of rocks and mingled woods; but all was lost
In too much light. Dull glared the giant stones;
The woods, fallen sleepy on their mountain couch,
Had nestled in their coverlet of haze.
Like dim-seen shapes of virgins stoled in blue
In huddled grace sleeping close-limbed they lay.
Then from some covert bosom’s shrouded riches
A revelation came; for like a gleam
Of beauty from a purple-guarded breast
One lovely glint of passionate whiteness broke.
Fluttering awhile towards him soon it fled
Seeking his vision; and its glowing race
Splintered the sapphire with its silvery hue,
And now a flame-bright flock of swans was seen
Flying like one and breasting with its shock
Of faery speed the vastness of the noon.
Not only with an argent flashing ran
The brilliant cohort on its skiey path,
But shaking from wild wings a hail of gold.
Heaven’s lustrous tunic of transparent air
Regretted the bright ornament as they passed.