Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

CWSA.- Volume 2

Part Two. Baroda
Sonnets from Manuscripts, c. 1900 – 1901

What is this talk

What is this talk of slayer and of slain?

Swords are not sharp to slay nor floods assuage

This flaming soul. Mortality and pain

Are mere conventions of a mightier stage.

As when a hero by his doom pursued

Falls like a pillar of the huge world¹ uptorn

Shaking the hearts of men and awe-imbued,

Silent the audience sits or² weeps³ forlorn,

Meanwhile behind the stage the actor sighs

Deep-lunged relief, puts off⁴ what he has been

And talks with friends that waited or from the flies

Watches the quiet of the closing scene,

Even so the unwounded spirits of the⁵ slain

Beyond our vision passing live again.

Earlier edition of this work: Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library: Set in 30 volumes.- Volume 5.- Collected Poems.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Asram, 1972.- 625 p.

¹ 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: the world

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² 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: of

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³ 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: joy

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⁴ 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: by

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⁵ 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.5: slayer and

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