Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Thou art myself
Thou art myself born from myself, O child.
O thou who speakst art thou my greater self?
And knowst my destiny and why I came
Into the narrow limits of this form?
Vain, they have said
Vain, they have said, is the anguish of man and his labour
diurnal,
Vainly his caravans cross through the desert of Time to the
Eternal.
Thick and persistent the night confronts all his luminous
longings;
Dire death’s sickle mows like a harvest his hosts and his
throngings.
Even if all life has failed, must it therefore be failure for ever?
Are not the ages before us still for a grander endeavour?
Have we not Beauty around in a dangerous world but
enthralling,
Courage inciting our steps and Thought to infinity calling?
Pururavus
Pururavus from converse held with Gods
On unseen crests of Nature high, occult,
Traversed the tumult of the flame-tossed seas
That cast their fire between the spirit’s poles.
Alone like a bright star twixt earth and heaven,
He reached the crossways of eternity.
A Soul to our apparent life reborn