Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

CWSA.- Volume 2

Part Three. Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 – 1909
Poems from Manuscripts, c. 1900 – 1906

Vision

Who art thou that roamest

Over mountains dim

In the haunts of evening,

Sister of the gleam!

Whiter than the jasmines,

Roses dream of thee;

Softly with the violets

How thine eyes agree!

As thy raven tresses

Night is not so black,

From thy moonbright shoulders

Floating dimly back.

Feet upon the hilltops,

Lilies of delight,

With their far-off radiance

Tinge the evening bright.

In the vesper calmness

Lightly like a dove,

With thy careless eyelids

Confident of love,

As of old thou comest

Down the mountains far,

Smiling from what gardens,

Glowing from what star?

Racing from the hilltops

Like a brilliant stream,

Burning in the valleys

Marble-bright of limb,

Singing in the orchards

When the shadows fall,

With thy crooning anklets

To my heart that call,

By the darkening window

Like a slender fire,

With the night behind thee,

Daughter of desire!

Open wide the doorway,

Bid my love come in

With the night behind her

And the dawn within.

Take, O radiant fingers,

Heart and hands of me,

Hide them in thy bosom,

O felicity!

Earlier edition of this work: Archives and Research: A biannual journal.- Volume 2, No2 (1978, December).- p.113.