On Sri Aurobindo’s Poem ‘The Vedantin’s Prayer’ (SAP 07)

It is a prayer of the conversion of the Asura.

THE VEDANTIN’S PRAYER

Spirit Supreme
Who musest in the silence of the heart,
Eternal gleam,

Thou only Art!
Ah, wherefore with this darkness am I veiled,
My sunlit part

By clouds assailed?
Why am I thus disfigured by desire,
Distracted, haled,

Scorched by the fire
Of fitful passions, from thy peace out-thrust
Into the gyre

Of every gust?
Betrayed to grief, o’ertaken with dismay,
Surprised by lust?

Let not my grey
Blood-clotted past repel thy sovereign ruth,
Nor even delay,

O lonely Truth!
Nor let the specious gods who ape Thee still
Deceive my youth.

These clamours still;
For I would hear the eternal voice and know
The eternal Will.

This brilliant show
Cumbering the threshold of eternity
Dispel,—bestow

The undimmed eye,
The heart grown young and clear. Rebuke in me
These hopes that cry

So deafeningly,
Remove my sullied centuries, restore
My purity.

O hidden door
Of Knowledge, open! Strength, fulfil thyself!
Love, outpour!

Circa 1900-1906  [CWSA 2: 212-213]