Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

SABCL - Volume 5

I. Short Poems
1890-1900

Envoi

Ite hinc, Camenae, vos quoque ite jam, sane

Dulces Camenae, nam fatebimur verum

Dulces fuistis, et tamen meas chartas

Revisitote sed pudenter et raro.

Pale poems, weak and few, who vainly use

Your wings towards the unattainable spheres,

Offspring of the divine Hellenic Muse,

Poor maimèd children born of six disastrous years!

Not as your mother’s is your wounded grace,

Since not to me with equal love returned

The hope which drew me to that serene face

Wherein no unreposeful light of effort burned.

Depart and live for seasons many or few

If live you may, but stay not here to pain

My heart with hopeless passion and renew

Visions of beauty that my lips shall ne’er attain.

For in Sicilian olive-groves no more

Or seldom must my footprints now be seen,

Nor tread Athenian lanes, nor yet explore

Parnassus or thy voiceful shores, O Hippocrene.

Me from her lotus heaven Saraswati

Has called to regions of eternal snow

And Ganges pacing to the southern sea,

Ganges upon whose shores the flowers of Eden blow.

Later edition of this work: The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo.- Set in 37 volumes.- Volume 2.- Collected Poems.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2009.- 751 p.