Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

CWSA.- Volume 2

Addendum. Pieces not included in CWSA

Fragment [2]

We are no wizened hermits. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . .whose fumbling hands

Turn pale religious leaves, forgetting earth

And this sweet natural light, this common air

That yet is precious, who with idiot scorn

And lunatic austerity repulse

The emparadising virtue of the soft

And roseate circle of a girl’s embrace.

Nor know they lofty pride, nor golden words

Of wisest poets, nor to wield a spear,

To loose the silent winged snake of war,

To wrestle knee to knee with grisly death.

By meditation and insipid sweets

Of piety and goodness, they aspire

To passionless perfection, death in life

Pale nothingness. But we the stormy brood;

Whom Ocean to imperious incest bore,

Were in the waste and ruinous conflict rocked

Of warring seas, and with thy nurturing milk

We drank the joy of battle, high disdain

That spurns obedience and the thirst unslaked

Indulgence prompts from sin to fiery sin.

This text was not included in CWSA and it was not compared with other editions. The text was taken from Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library: Set in 30 volumes.- Volume 27.- Supplement.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Asram, 1972.- 511 p.