“Who” — A Poem By Sri Aurobindo
Following on from my last post, here is a poem on the same theme. Although I have not read all the poems ever written, I dare say this is one of the greatest in all history. It will not gain anything from my words though, so I shall leave you here to spend a few moments with it peacefully…
“Who”
“In the blue of the sky, in the green of the forest,
Whose is the hand that has painted the glow?
When the winds were asleep in the womb of the ether,
Who was it roused them and bade them to blow?He is lost in the heart, in the cavern of Nature,
He is found in the brain where He builds up the thought:
In the pattern and bloom of the flowers He is woven,
In the luminous net of the stars He is caught.In the strength of a man, in the beauty of woman,
In the laugh of a boy, in the blush of a girl;
The hand that sent Jupiter spinning through heaven,
Spends all its cunning to fashion a curl.There are His works and His veils and His shadows;
But where is He then? by what name is He known?
Is He Brahma or Vishnu? a man or a woman?
Bodies or bodiless? twin or alone?We have love for a boy who is dark and resplendent,
A woman is lord of us, naked and fierce.
We have seen Him a-muse on the snow of the mountains,
We have watched Him at work in the heart of the spheres.We will tell the whole world of His ways and His cunning;
He has rapture of torture and passion and pain;
He delights in our sorrow and drives us to weeping,
Then lures with His joy and His beauty again.All music is only the sound of His laughter,
All beauty the smile of His passionate bliss;
Our lives are His heart-beats, our rapture the bridal
Of Radha and Krishna, our love is their kiss.He is strength that is loud in the blare of the trumpets,
And He rides in the car and He strikes in the spears;
He slays without stint and is full of compassion;
He wars for the world and its ultimate years.In the sweep of the worlds, in the surge of the ages,
Ineffable, mighty, majestic and pure,
Beyond the last pinnacle seized by the thinker
He is throned in His seats that for ever endure.The Master of man and his infinite Lover,
He is close to our hearts, had we vision to see;
We are blind with our pride and the pomp of our passions,
We are bound in our thoughts where we hold ourselves free.It is He in the sun who is ageless and deathless,
And into the midnight His shadow is thrown;
When darkness was blind and engulfed within darkness,
He was seated within it immense and alone.”
Tags: sri aurobindo
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May 3rd, 2007 at 9:06 pm
I am not exaggerating, although admittedly prone to hyperbole, when I say that it was a poem by Sri Aurobindo that first awakened me to a love of poetry. It may even have been this one, but I do not precisely recall, being as it was read aloud by someone else more than 10 years ago now, and I missed the title at the time…
I do also remember reading once that Sri Aurobindo wrote all of his writings—as opposed to his poetry—in the space of about 4 years, after which point he renounced prose altogether. This is some feat, considering that at my former University there was an entire shelf with just his works.
Conversely, I think it would take me 4 years to read just one of his books. Which is not to say that I am a completely hopeless reader—more that I can seldom read more than a paragraph of his without wanting to contemplate, and begin to understand, considerable hidden depths…
I have long recalled a saying of his, and even put it to some small, very small effect, that he completely transcended his mind when he came to realise that every truth of the mind has an equally valid counter-truth.
Thanks for posting.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:54 am
This poem is satisfaction itself, thank you for posting it.
May 4th, 2007 at 10:28 am
Thanks for your views, John and Alf.
Reading at least one of Sri Aurobindo’s books of prose was something I promised myself I would work up to, sometime before the end of this life.
I tried to read his Savitri once, because it is such a famous poetic work. I had absolutely no idea what was going on, and I didn’t get very far, but I was somehow deeply moved nonetheless. Such is the majesty of a deeply spiritual work…