Sri Aurobindo

Writings in Bengali

Translated into English

The Music of Silence

I have seized your soul, mighty Spirit of Time!

Now the sky veers around, iridescent in the cataract of sun-rays,

Creating the magic city of limpid Even-tide,

I wandered along river banks seeking to attune my heart-strings

To the murmur and music of life voiced by her rippling waves:

Night infinite descended with silent steps,

Casting the shadow of her coronet

Upon the wide sky, flinging the hem of her robe,

Laying down the soft darkness upon earth's expanse.

Her eyes lost in thought,

In this vast Night, plunged in the contemplation of the supreme Void,

The dark Mother of the world in her ascetic mood lies in utter trance:

She draws deep into her bosom all creatures stilled in peace,

She plays her role of goddess Sleep,

Comes and silences the Life's noise and its ceaseless play.

Now is the honeyed banquet of stillness,

The crowded stars like bees innumerable have flown out and

gathered in the heavens:

To smear with the rays of light the hearts of creatures,

The luminous amphora of cooling ecstasy,

The Moon, floats up in the night bejewelled with stars.

In this darkness illumined by dream-moonlight

The little human soul of mine

I have drowned into this infinite Life

And have heard the music of Silence.

Translated from Bengali into English by Nolini Kanta Gupta