Golden Gleanings

I have a Hundred Lives I have a hundred lives before me yet To grasp thee in, O spirit ethereal, Be sure I will with heart insatiate Pursue thee like a hunter through them all. Thou yet shalt turn back on the eternal way And with awakened vision watch me come Smiling a little at errors past, and lay Thy eager hand in mine, its proper home. Meanwhile made happy by thy happiness I shall approach the...

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 li...

A Tree A tree beside the sandy river-beach     Holds up its topmost boughs Like fingers towards the skies they cannot reach,     Earth-bound, heaven-amorous. This is the soul of man. Body and brain Hungry for earth our heavenly flight detain. Read Online: https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2/a-tree

Because Thou Art Because Thou art All-beauty and All-bliss,     My soul blind and enamoured yearns for Thee; It bears Thy mystic touch in all that is     And thrills with the burden of that ecstasy. Behind all eyes I meet Thy secret gaze     And in each voice I hear Thy magic tune: Thy sweetness hunts my heart through Nature’s ways;     Nowhere it beats now from Thy snare immune. It loves Thy body...

The End - Poem By Sri Aurobindo Is this the end of all that we have been,     And all we did or dreamed,— A name unremembered and a form undone,—     Is this the end? A body rotting under a slab of stone     Or turned to ash in fire, A mind dissolved, lost its forgotten thoughts,—     Is this the end? Our little hours that were and are no more,     Our passions once so high Dying mocked by the sti...

The Blue Bird I am the bird of God in His blue;     Divinely high and clear I sing the notes of the sweet and the true     For the god’s and the seraph’s ear. I rise like a fire from the mortal’s earth     Into a griefless sky And drop in the suffering soil of his birth     Fire-seeds of ecstasy. My pinions soar beyond Time and Space     Into unfading Light; I bring the bliss of the Eternal’s face...

The Silence Into the Silence, into the Silence, Arise, O Spirit immortal, Away from the turning Wheel, breaking the magical Circle. Ascend, single and deathless: Care no more for the whispers and the shoutings in the darkness, Pass from the sphere of the grey and the little, Leaving the cry and the struggle, Into the Silence for ever. Vast and immobile, formless and marvellous, Higher than Heaven,...

The Yogi on the Whirlpool On a dire whirlpool in the hurrying river,     A life-stilled statue naked, bronze, severe,     He kept the posture of a deathless seer Unshaken by the mad water’s leap and shiver. Thought could not think in him, flesh could not quiver;     The feet of Time could not adventure here;     Only some unknown Power nude and austere, Only a Silence mighty to deliver. His spirit...

Who - Poem By Sri Aurobindo 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,     ...

O Face that I have Loved - Poem By Sri Aurobindo O face that I have loved until no face Beneath the quiet heavens such glory wear, They say you are not beautiful,—no snare Of twilight in the changing mysticness Or deep enhaloed secrecy of hair, Soft largeness in the eyes I dare not kiss! Unreal all your bosom’s dreadful bliss. Too narrow are your brows they say to bear The temple of vast beauty in...

Saraswati with the Lotus - Poem By Sri Aurobindo Thy tears fall fast, O mother, on its bloom, O white-armed mother, like honey fall thy tears; Yet even their sweetness can no more relume The golden light, the fragrance heaven rears, The fragrance and the light for ever shed Upon his lips immortal who is dead. Read The Poem Online: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Click here to read

The Just Man - Poem By Sri Aurobindo Where is the man whom hope nor fear can move?     Him the wise Gods approve. The man divine of motive pure and steadfast will         Unbent to ill, Whose way is plain nor swerves for power or gold     The high, straight path to hold:— Him only wise the wise Gods deem, him pure of lust;         Him only just. Tho’ men give rubies, tho’ they bring a prize     Sw...

To the Cuckoo - Poem By Sri Aurobindo Sounds of the wakening world, the year’s increase, Passage of wind and all his dewy powers With breath and laughter of new-bathed flowers And that deep light of heaven above the trees Awake mid leaves that muse in golden peace Sweet noise of birds, but most in heavenly showers The cuckoo’s voice pervades the lucid hours, Is priest and summoner of these melodie...

To a Hero-Worshipper - I My life is then a wasted ereme,     My song but idle wind     Because you merely find In all this woven wealth of rhyme Harsh figures with harsh music wound, The uncouth voice of gorgeous birds, A ruby carcanet of sound,     A cloud of lovely words? I am, you say, no magic rod,     No cry oracular,     No swart and ominous star, No Sinai thunder voicing God. I have no burd...

Phaethon - Poem By Sri Aurobindo Ye weeping poplars by the shelvy slope From murmurous lawns downdropping to the stream On whom the dusk air like a sombre dream Broods and a twilight ignorant of hope, Say what compulsion drear has bid you seam Your mossy sides with drop on eloquent drop That in warm rillets from your eyes elope? Is it for the too patient, sure decay Pale-gilded Autumn, aesthete of...

O Letter Dull and Cold - Poem By Sri Aurobindo O letter dull and cold, how can she read Gladly these lifeless lines, no fire that prove, When others even their passionate hearts exceed Caressing her sweet name with words of love? O me that I could force this barrier, turn My heart to syllables, make all desire One burning word, then would my letters yearn With some reflection of that hidden fire....

The Silver Call There is a godhead of unrealised things     To which Time’s splendid gains are hoarded dross; A cry seems near, a rustle of silver wings     Calling to heavenly joy by earthly loss. All eye has seen and all the ear has heard     Is a pale illusion by some greater voice And mightier vision; no sweet sound or word,     No passion of hues that make the heart rejoice Can equal those di...

The Nightingale Hark in the trees the low-voiced nightingale Has slain the silence with a jubilant cry; How clear in the hushed night, yet voluble And various as sweet water wavering by,     That murmurs in a channel small     Beneath a low grey wall,     Then sings amid the fitful rye.     O sweet grave Siren of the night,         Astarte’s eremite, Thou feedest every leaf with solemn glee. Lo, t...

Song O lady Venus, shine on me, O rose-crowned goddess from thy seas Radiant among the Cyclades! Rose-crowned, puissant like the sea. And bring thy Graces three, The swift companions of thy mirthful mind. Bring thy sweet rogue with thee, Thy careless archer, beautiful and blind. A woman’s royal heart Bid him to wound and bind her who is free; Bind her for me! Nor for the sweet bright crimson blood...

Epitaph Moulded of twilight and the vesper star Midnight in her with noon made quiet war;— Moulded twixt life and death, Love came between; Then the night fell; twilight faded, the star had been. Read The Poem Online: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Click here to read

Epigram If thou wouldst traverse Time with vagrant feet     Nor make the poles thy limit fill not then Thy wallet with the fancy’s cloying sweet     Which is no stay to heaven-aspiring men, But follow wisdom since alone the wise Can walk through fire with unblinking eyes. Read The Sonnet Online: ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Click here to read

A Thing Seen She in her garden, near the high grey wall, Sleeping; a silver-bodied birch-tree tall That held its garments o’er her wide and green, Building a parapet of shade between, Forbade the amorous sun to look on her. No fold of gracious raiment was astir. The wind walked softly; silent moved a cloud Listening; of all the tree no leaf was loud But guarded a divine expectant hush Thrilled by...

Thou didst Mistake Thou didst mistake, thy spirit’s infant flight Opening its lovely wings upon the sun Paused o’er the first strong bloom that met thy sight Thinking perhaps it was the only one. But all this fragrant garden was beyond. Winds came to thee with hints of honey; day Disclosed a brighter hope than this unsunned Thought-sheltered heart and called thee far away. Thou didst mistake. Must...

Rose, I have Loved Rose, I have loved thy beauty, as I love The dress that thou hast worn, the transient grass, O’er which thy happy careless footsteps move, The yet-thrilled waysides that have watched thee pass. Soul, I have loved thy sweetness as men love The necessary air they crave to breathe, The sunlight lavished from the skies above, And firmness of the earth their steps beneath. But were t...

Because thy Flame is Spent Because thy flame is spent, shall mine grow less, O bud, O wonder of the opening rose? Why both my soul and Love it would disgrace If I could trade in love, begin and close My long account of passion, like a book Of merchant’s credit given to be repaid, Or not returned, struck off with lowering look Like a bad debt uncritically made. What thou couldst give, thou gav’st m...