Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

666 Pondicherry, c. 1927 – 1947
All that drew back from his splendour fleeing as ashamed from
the light and the beauty and invincible sweetness
Now returns vaunting their darkness and littleness, this fret of
life’s fever, its cruel and sad incompleteness.
The Death of a God [2]
Arise, tread out the fire,
Scatter the ashes of a god through the stars!
Forget to hope and aspire.
He is dead and his greatness that cumbered the world has
vanished like a golden shadow from the ages.
The whip of glory, the splendid burden behind us are cast,
Earth is free from fire and stress, left to the joy of her
smallness, rid of his mighty spirit at last.
All that is false and wry and little are freed to follow their
nature once more.
Close time’s brilliant pages!
Give back to man’s life the old tables, its dull ease, its bowed
greyness restore.
The Inconscient and the Traveller Fire
THE INCONSCIENT
Flame that invadest my empire of sorrow wordless and sombre,
Arrow of azure light golden-winged, barbed with delight,
Who was it aimed thee into this crucified Soul that for ever
Passions and beats in the womb of a universe built for its tomb?
Lo, I am Death and I live in the boundless cavern of Nature,
Death who cannot die, Shadow of Eternity,
Vainly I burn in stars as they err through a Void without feature,
Scintillant forms of my Nought vast without life, without thought.