The Triumph-Song of Trishuncou (SAP 030)

This poem by Sri Aurobindo, based on the famous story of Trishuncou, reveals to us the secret truth of immortality.

THE TRIUMPH-SONG OF TRISHUNCOU

I shall not die.
    Although this body, when the spirit tires
    Of its cramped residence, shall feed the fires,
My house consumes, not I.

Leaving that case
    I find out ample and ethereal room.
    My spirit shall avoid the hungry tomb,
Deceiving death’s embrace.

Night shall contain
    The sun in its cold depths; Time too must cease;
    The stars that labour shall have their release.
I cease not, I remain.

Ere the first seeds
    Were sown on earth, I was already old,
    And when now unborn planets shall grow cold
My history proceeds.

I am the light
    In stars, the strength of lions and the joy
    Of mornings; I am man and maid and boy,
Protean, infinite.

I am a tree
    That stands out singly from the infinite blue;
    I am the quiet falling of the dew
And am the unmeasured sea.

I hold the sky
    Together and upbear the teeming earth.
    I was the eternal thinker at my birth
And shall be, though I die.

(Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, pp. 215-216)