Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

SABCL - Volume 5

I. Short Poems
1895-1908

The Vedantin’s Prayer

Spirit Supreme

Who musest in the silence of the heart,

Eternal gleam,

Thou only Art!

Ah, wherefore with this darkness am I veiled,

My sunlit part

By clouds assailed?

Why am I thus disfigured by desire,

Distracted, haled,

Scorched by the fire

Of fitful passions, from thy peace out-thrust

Into the gyre

Of every gust?

Betrayed to grief, o’ertaken with dismay,

Surprised by lust?

Let not my grey

Blood-clotted past repel thy sovereign ruth,

Nor even delay,

O lonely Truth!

Nor let the specious gods who ape Thee still

Deceive my youth.

These clamours still;

For I would hear the eternal voice and know

The eternal Will.

This brilliant show

Cumbering the threshold of eternity

Dispel,– bestow

The undimmed eye,

The heart grown young and clear. Rebuke, O Lord,¹

These hopes that cry

So deafeningly,

Remove my sullied centuries, restore

My purity.

O hidden door

Of Knowledge, open! Strength, fulfil thyself!

Love, outpour!

Later edition of this work: The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo.- Set in 37 volumes.- Volume 2.- Collected Poems.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2009.- 751 p.

¹ 2009 ed. CWSA, vol.2: Rebuke in me

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