Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

CWSA.- Volume 2

Part Seven. Pondicherry
Incomplete Poems from Manuscripts, c. 1927 – 1947

O¹ ye Powers

O² ye Powers of the Supreme and of the Mother, the Divine,

I have come to you initiate, a bearer of the sign.

For I carry the Name in me that nothing can efface.

I have breathed in an illimitable spiritual Space

And my soul through the unfathomable stillnesses has heard

The god-voices of knowledge and the marvels of the Word.

It has listened to the secret that was hidden in the night

Of the inconscient infinities first when by³ His might

He arose out of the caverns of the darkness⁴ self-enwrapped

And the nebulae were churned up like to foam-froth and were shaped

Till these⁵ millions of universes mystical upbuoyed

Were outsprinkled as if stardust on the Dragon of the Void.

I was there⁶ then in the infinitesimal and obscure

As a seed soul in the fire seeds of the energies that endure.

I have learned now to what purpose I have loitered⁷ as His spark

In the midnight of earth Matter⁸ like a glow-worm in the dark

And my spirit was imprisoned in the muteness of a stone,

A soul thoughtless and left⁹ voiceless and impuissant and alone.

Earlier edition of this work: Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library: Set in 30 volumes.- Volume 5.- Collected Poems.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Asram, 1972.- 625 p.

¹ 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: Oh

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² 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: Oh

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³ 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: foreshadowing

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⁴ 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: darknesses

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⁵ 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: the

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⁶ 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: borne.

Tentative reading (Note from the edition of 1972 year.)

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⁷ 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: laboured

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⁸ 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: Matter | Earth

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⁹ Tentative reading (Note from the edition of 1972 year.)

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