Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Incomplete Poems 49
The warden of the starry waste
Who walks with orange-coloured lamp
And weird eyes nursing fire, paced
Night’s silver-tented camp.
The rose-lipped golden-footed day,
A flower by maiden culled,
Beneath star-blossomed arras lay
In Evening’s bosom lulled.
The water seemed a damson crust
With golden sugar poured,
Or mirror caked with purple dust
In lady’s closet stored.
The hour like a weary snake
Coiled slowly gliding serpentine
Or drowsy nun perforce awake
To pace a pillared shrine.
The roses shuddered in their sleep,
The lilies drooped their silver fires,
The reeds upon the humming steep
Bowed low their tapering spires;
For tho’ no sob pulsed in the air,
No agony of wind,
Down Heaven’s moonlight-painted stair
Trod angels who had sinned.
Fireflies drizzled in the dark
Like drops of burning rain,
The glow-worm was a crawling spark,
The pool a purple stain,
The stars were grains of blazing sand,
A haunted soul the shadowy lea,
In forest-featured Broceliande
Beyond the echoing sea.
Sir Thaliard by the phantom edge
Heard rustling feet behind the trees
And the weird water lapped the sedge
With wistful symphonies: