SRI AUROBINDO
Translations
from Sanskrit and Other Languages
Kalidasa
Bhartrihari. The Century of Life
Miscellaneous Verses
Renounce thy vain attempt, presumptuous man,
Who think’st and labourest long impossibly
That the great heart for misery falter can:
Fruitless thy hope that cruel fall to see.
Dull soul! these are not petty transient hills,
Himalay and Mahendra and the rest,
Nor your poor oceans, their fixed course and wills
That yield by the last cataclysm oppressed.
Man’s will his shattered world can long survive:
When all has perished, it can dare to live.