Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

SABCL - Volume 5

I. Short Poems
1902-1930

Silence is all

1

Silence is all, say the sages.

Silence watches the work of the ages;

In the book of Silence the cosmic Scribe has written his cosmic pages;

Silence is all, say the sages.

2

What then of the word, O speaker?

What then of the thought, O thinker?

Thought is the wine of the soul and the word is the beaker;

Life is the banquet-table – the soul¹ of the sage is the drinker.

3

What of the wine, O mortal?

I am drunk with the wine as I sit at Wisdom’s portal,

Waiting for the Light beyond thought and the Word immortal.

Long I sit in vain at Wisdom’s portal.

4

How shalt thou know the Word when it comes, O seeker?

How shalt thou know the Light when it breaks, O witness?

I shall hear the voice of the God within me and grow wiser and meeker;

I shall be the tree that takes in the light as its food, I shall drink its nectar of sweetness.

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.

¹ 2009 ed. CWSA, vol.2: banquet-table as the soul

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