Collected Poems
This volume consists of all poems in English including sonnets, lyrical poems, narrative poems, and metrical experiments in various forms. All such poems published by Sri Aurobindo during his lifetime are included here, as well as poems found among his manuscripts after his passing. Sri Aurobindo worked on these poems over the course of seven decades. The first one was published in 1883 when he was ten; a number of poems were written or revised more than sixty years later, in the late 1940s.
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CWSA
- Collected Poems
- Vol. 2
- 2009 Edition
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SABCL
- Collected Poems
- Vol. 5
- 1972 Edition
- Part I: England and Baroda (1883-1898)
- Part II: Baroda (Circa 1898-1902)
- Part III: Baroda and Bengal (Circa 1900-1909)
- Part IV: Calcutta and Chandernagore (1907-1910)
- Part V: Pondicherry (Circa 1910-1920)
- Part VI: Baroda and Pondicherry (Circa 1902-1936)
- Part VII: Pondicherry (Circa 1927-1947)
- Note on the Text
- Index of Titles
- Index of First Lines
Life
Mystic daughter of Delight,
Life, thou ecstasy,
Let the radius of thy flight
Be eternity.
On thy wings thou bearest high
Glory and disdain,
Godhead and mortality,
Ecstasy and pain.
Take me in thy bold embrace
Without weak reserve,
Body dire and unveiled face;
Faint not, Life, nor swerve.
All thy bliss I would explore,
All thy tyranny.
Cruel like the lion's roar,
Sweet like springtide be.
Like a Titan I would take,
Like a God enjoy,
Like a man contend and make,
Revel like a boy.
More I will not ask of thee,
Nor my fate would choose;
King or conquered let me be,
Vanquish, Life, or lose.
Even in rags I am a god;
Fallen, I am divine;
High I triumph when down-trod,
Long I live when slain.
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