Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

730 Collected Poems
Sri Aurobindo’s epigram is not a literal translation of the English poem,
but an adaptation of it in Greek verse. Transliterated into the Latin
alphabet, the Greek text reads as follows:
Mōros Erōs alaos th’; ho d’homōs ha g’eni phresi keitai
Hēmōn, ophthalmous ōn alaos kathora.
Pai, su gar hēdu gelōn iobostrukhe kalliprosōpe,
Diktuō andra kalō kai sophon exapatas.
Oude sophos per anēr se, doloploke, phuximos oudeis;
Kai proteros pantōn doulos erōti sophos.
Lorsque rien n’existait. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1914 – 20. Sri
Aurobindo seems to have written this prose poem during a fairly early
period of his stay in Pondicherry. Published here for the first time.
Sur les grands sommets blancs. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1927.
Sri Aurobindo wrote this incomplete poem in a notebook he used
otherwise for the Record of Yoga of 1927.
PUBLICATION HISTORY
During his lifetime, Sri Aurobindo published poetry in a number of
periodicals: Fox’s Weekly (1883), Bande Mataram (1907), The Modern
Review (1909, 1910), Karmayogin (1909, 1910), Shama’a (1921),
The Calcutta Review (1934), Sri Aurobindo Circle (1948, 1949), and
others. He also published poetry in twelve books: Songs to Myrtilla
and Other Poems (c. 1898), Urvasie (c. 1899), Ahana and Other Poems
(1915), Love and Death (1921), Baji Prabhou (1922), Six Poems
(1934), Poems (1941), Collected Poems and Plays (1942), On Quantitative
Metre (1942), Poems Past and Present (1946), Chitrangada
(1949) and Savitri (1950 – 51). Details on the first editions of all these
books except the last two may be found in the above notes. Four of
the books had further editions during Sri Aurobindo’s lifetime: Songs
to Myrtilla (1923), Urvasie (c. 1905), Love and Death (1924, 1948),
and Baji Prabhou (1949).
Collected Poems and Plays was the first attempt to bring out a
comprehensive edition of Sri Aurobindo’s known poetic output. It was
planned by Nolini Kanta Gupta for release on 15 August 1942, Sri