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)
