Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

CWSA.- Volume 2

Part Three. Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 – 1909
Poems from Ahana and Other Poems

The Vedantin’s Prayer

Spirit Supreme

Who musest in the silence of the heart,

Eternal gleam,

Thou only Art!

Ah, wherefore with this darkness am I veiled,

My sunlit part

By clouds assailed?

Why am I thus disfigured by desire,

Distracted, haled,

Scorched by the fire

Of fitful passions, from thy peace out-thrust

Into the gyre

Of every gust?

Betrayed to grief, o’ertaken with dismay,

Surprised by lust?

Let not my grey

Blood-clotted past repel thy sovereign ruth,

Nor even delay,

O lonely Truth!

Nor let the specious gods who ape Thee still

Deceive my youth.

These clamours still;

For I would hear the eternal voice and know

The eternal Will.

This brilliant show

Cumbering the threshold of eternity

Dispel,– bestow

The undimmed eye,

The heart grown young and clear. Rebuke in me¹

These hopes that cry

So deafeningly,

Remove my sullied centuries, restore

My purity.

O hidden door

Of Knowledge, open! Strength, fulfil thyself!

Love, outpour!

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: Rebuke, O Lord,

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