A Gods Labour - Sri Aurobindo I have gathered my dreams in a silver air Between the gold and the blue And wrapped them softly and left them there, My jewelled dreams of you. I had hoped to build a rainbow bridge Marrying the soil to the sky And sow in this dancing planet midge The moods of infinity. But too bright were our heavens, too far away, Too frail their ethereal stuff; Too splendid and sudden our light could not stay; The roots were not deep enough. He who would bring the heavens here Must descend himself into clay And the burden of earthly nature bear And tread the dolorous way. Coercing my godhead I have come down Here on the sordid earth, Ignorant, labouring, human grown Twixt the gates of death and birth. I have been digging deep and long Mid a horror of filth and mire A bed for the golden river’s song, A home for the deathless fire. I have laboured and suffered in Matter’s night To bring the fire to man; But the hate of hell and human spite Are my meed since the world began. For man’s mind is the dupe of his animal self; Hoping its lusts to win, He harbours within him a grisly Elf Enamoured of sorrow and sin. The grey Elf shudders from heaven’s flame And from all things glad and pure; Only by pleasure and passion and pain His drama can endure. All around is darkness and strife; For the lamps that men call suns Are but halfway gleams on this stumbling life Cast by the Undying Ones. Man lights his little torches of hope That lead to a failing edge; A fragment of Truth is his widest scope, An inn his pilgrimage. The Truth of truths men fear and deny, The Light of lights they refuse; To ignorant gods they lift their cry Or a demon altar choose. All that was found must again be sought, Each enemy slain revives, Each battle for ever is fought and refought Through vistas of fruitless lives. My gaping wounds are a thousand and one And the Titan kings assail, But I cannot rest till my task is done And wrought the eternal will. How they mock and sneer, both devils and men! Thy hope is Chimera’s head Painting the sky with its fiery stain; Thou shalt fall and thy work lie dead. Who art thou that babblest of heavenly ease And joy and golden room To us who are waifs on inconscient seas And bound to life’s iron doom? This earth is ours, a field of Night For our petty flickering fires. How shall it brook the scared Light Or suffer a god’s desires? Come, let us slay him and end his course! Then shall our hearts have release From the burden and call of his glory and force And the curb of his wide white peace. But the god is there in my mortal breast Who wrestles with error and fate And tramples a road through mire and waste For the nameless Immaculate. A voice cried, Go where none have gone! Dig deeper, deeper yet Till thou reach the grim foundation stone And knock at the keyless gate. I saw that a falsehood was planted deep At the very root of things Where the grey Sphinx guards God’s riddle sleep On the Dragon’s outspread wings. I left the surface gods of mind And life’s unsatisfied seas And plunged through the body’s alleys blind To the nether mysteries. I have delved through the dumb Earth’s dreadful heart And heard her black mass’ bell. I have seen the source whence her agonies part And the inner reason of hell. Above me the dragon murmurs moan And the goblin voices flit; I have pierced the Void where Thought was born, I have walked in the bottomless pit. On a desperate stair my feet have trod Armoured with boundless peace, Bringing the fires of the splendour of God Into the human abyss. He who I am was with me still; All veils are breaking now. I have heard His voice and borne His will on my vast untroubled brow. The gulf twixt the depths and the heights is bridged And the golden waters pour Down the sapphire mountain rainbow-ridged And glimmer from shore to shore. Heaven’s fire is lit in the breast of the earth And the undying suns here burn; Through a wonder cleft in the bounds of birth The incarnate spirits yearn Like flames to the kingdoms of Truth and Bliss: Down a gold-red stair-way wend The radiant children of Paradise Clarioning darkness’s end. A little more and the new life’s doors Shall be carved in silver light With its aureate roof and mosaic floors In a great world bare and bright. I shall leave my dreams in their argent air, For in a raiment of gold and blue There shall move on the earth embodied and fair The living truth of you.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 06:44:27 +0000