A trifling unit in a boundless planSri Aurobindo
Collected Poems
SABCL - Volume 5
II. Sonnets
Undated
Man, the Thinking Animal
A trifling unit in a boundless plan
Amidst the enormous insignificance
Of the unpeopled cosmos’ fire-whirl dance,
Earth, as by accident, engendered man:
A creature of his own grey ignorance,
A mind half-shadow and half-gleam, a breath
That wrestles, captive in a world of death,
To live some lame brief years. Yet his advance,
Attempt of a divinity within,
A consciousness in the inconscient Night,
To realise its own supernal Light
Confronts the ruthless forces of the Unseen.
Aspiring to godhead from insensible clay
He travels slow-footed towards the eternal day.
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.