Sri Aurobindo

Collected Poems

CWSA.- Volume 2

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

The Fear of Death

Death wanders through our lives at will, sweet Death

Is busy with each intake of our breath.

Why do you fear her? Lo, her laughing face

All rosy with the light of jocund grace!

A kind and lovely maiden culling flowers

In a sweet garden fresh with vernal showers,

This is the thing you fear, young portress bright

Who opens to our souls the worlds of light.

Is it because the twisted stem must feel

Pain when the tenderest hands its glory steal?

Is it because the flowerless stalk droops dull

And ghastly now that was so beautiful?

Or is it the opening portal’s horrid jar

That shakes you, feeble souls of courage bare?

Death is but changing of our robes to wait

In wedding garments at the Eternal’s gate.

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.