Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

694 Collected Poems
from the manuscript:
To my brother
Manmohan Ghose
these poems
are dedicated.
Tale tuum nobis carmen, divine poeta,
Quale sopor fessis in gramine, quale per aestum
Dulcis aquae saliente sitim restinguere rivo.
***
Quae tibi, quae tali reddam pro carmine dona?
The Latin lines are from Virgil’s fifth Eclogue, lines 45 – 47 and 81.
They may be translated as follows:
So is thy song to me, poet divine,
As slumber on the grass to weary limbs,
Or to slake thirst from some sweet-bubbling rill
In summer’s heat . . .
How, how repay thee for a song so rare?
Four of the poems in Songs to Myrtilla are adaptations of works written
in other languages: two in ancient Greek and two in mediaeval Bengali.
These adaptations are published here in their original context. They
are also published in Translations, volume 5 of THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF SRI AUROBINDO.
Songs to Myrtilla. Circa 1890 – 98. This, the title-poem of the collection,
is headed in the manuscript “Sweet is the night”.
OCoïl, Coïl. Circa 1890 – 98. The coïl is the koyel or Indian cuckoo.
Goethe. Circa 1890 – 98.
The Lost Deliverer. Circa 1890 – 98. In the manuscript and the Baroda
edition, this epigram is entitled “Ferdinand Lassalle”. Lassalle (1825 –
64), a German socialist leader, was killed in a duel over a woman.
Charles Stewart Parnell. Dated 1891, the year of the Irish nationalist
leader’s death.
Hic Jacet. Dated 1891 in the manuscript; subtitled in the manuscript