What is this talk of slayer and of slain?Sri Aurobindo
Collected Poems
SABCL - Volume 5
II. Sonnets
Early Period
What is this talk
What is this talk of slayer and of slain?
Swords are not sharp to slay nor floods assuage
This flaming soul. Mortality and pain
Are mere conventions of a mightier stage.
As when a hero by his doom pursued
Falls like a pillar of the world1 uptorn,
Shaking the hearts of men, and awe-imbued
Silent the audience sits of2 joy3 forlorn,
Meanwhile behind the stage the actor sighs
Deep-lunged relief, puts by4 what he has been
And talks with friends that waited, or from the flies
Watches the quiet of the closing scene,
Even so the unwounded spirits of slayer and5 slain
Beyond our vision passing live again.
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: the huge world
2 2009 ed. CWSA, vol.2: or
3 2009 ed. CWSA, vol.2: weeps
4 2009 ed. CWSA, vol.2: off
5 2009 ed. CWSA, vol.2: the