Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

CWSA.- Volume 2

Part Five. Pondicherry
Incomplete Poems from Manuscripts, c. 1912 – 1920

The Tale of Nala [2]

Nala, Nishadha’s king, paced by a stream

That sings to jasmine-bushes where they dream

Dropping their petal kisses on the flood.

A mountain purple-vague

Wide-watching, half-reclined against the sky,

The drowsy earth with its stone-lidded eye,

Pressing upon the nearness blue and dense

Its shoulder in a mighty indolence.

The birds were silent on the unruffled trees;

The spotted lizard in a dull-eyed ease

Basked on his sentinel-stone; a lonely kite

Circled above, half rusty-gold, half-white.

Shrill and dissatisfied the wanderer’s sky

To an unlistening ear sailed shadowy-high.

He saw with absent eyes the ripple-run

Of waters curling in the noonday sun.

His thoughts were with a face his dreams had seen,

And like a floating charm it came between

His vision and the jasmines’ virgin glow,

Warmer than clusterings of their moon-flaked snow.

He listened to a name his dreams had heard

Sweeter than passion of a crooning bird.

In long and softly-wreathing sounds were twined

The delicate syllables yearning through his mind;

His beating heart was to their charm compelled.

But now he raised his eyelids and beheld

Possess the air in act to climb and seize

Heaven’s sapphire longing for earth’s green unease,

The summit self-uplifted to the sky

With undecipherable charactery

Of woods half-outlined in a passionate haze.

Bright violently as if to force his gaze

Broke from the blue-stoled secrecy of the hill

Such radiance as when softly visible

Breaks stealing from a purple-covered breast

A lovely glint of whiteness. Now, increased,

Like a snow-feathered arrow-head it flew

Splintering the sapphire with its silvery hue.

But before long there gleamed a flame-bright flock

Flying like one and breasting with its shock

Of faery speed the widenesses of noon.

So rapidly the wonder travelled, soon

He saw distinct the feathers proud and fine

Not only with a splendour argentine,

But shaken from the wings was shed a hail

Of gold that left the sunbeam’s glory pale.

They flew not like the snowy cranes, a wreath

Of flowers driven in the rainwind’s breath,

But ranked in lovely lines magnificent came

Filling the eyes with silver and with flame.

They over Nala’s garden flying round

Whirring descended with a far-heard sound,

A gentle thunder falling sweetly slack

As line by line they filled the slumbering lake.

A hundred wonderful shapes in mystic crowd

Covered the water like a living cloud.

Next on the stream they spread their glorious bosoms

And preening over the waves like curving blossoms

Their long and delicate necks came floating on.

This work was not included in SABCL, it was not compared with other editions.