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Sri Aurobindo

Translations

CWSA.- Volume 5

Part One. Translations from Sanskrit
Section Four. Bhartrihari. The Century of Life

Miscellaneous Verses

Statesman and Poet

How like are these whose labour does not cease,

Statesman and poet, in their several cares;

Anxious their task, no work of splendid ease!

One ranges far for costly words, prepares

Pure forms and violence popular disdains,

The voice of rare assemblies strives to find,

Slowly adds phrase to noble phrase and means

Each line around the human heart to wind.

The statesman seeks the nation’s wealth from far;

Not to the easy way of violence prone

He puts from him the brutal clang of war

And seeks a better kind dominion,

To please the just in their assemblies high,

Slowly to build his careful steps between

The noble lines of linkèd policy,–

He shapes his acts a nation’s heart to win.

Their burden and their toil make these two kin.