Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

SABCL - Volume 5

VI. Poems in New Metres

The Dream Boat

Who was it that came to me in a boat made of dream-fire,

With his flame brow and his sun-gold body?

Melted was the silence into a sweet secret murmur,

“Do you come now? is the heart’s fire ready?”

Hidden in the recesses of the heart something shuddered,

It recalled all that the life’s joy cherished,

Imaged the felicity it must leave lost for ever,

And the boat passed and the gold god vanished.

Now within the hollowness of the world’s breast inhabits –

For the love died and the old joy ended –

Void of a felicity that has fled, gone for ever,

And the gold god and the dream boat come not.

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.

Lines 1, 3 dactyl, second paeon, ionic a minore, amphibrach (or antibacchius)

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Lines 2, 4 two ionics a minore with a closing trochee

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