To a Hero-Worshipper
from Golden Gleanings Hosted by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Delhi Branch
To a Hero-Worshipper - I My life is then a wasted ereme, My song but idle wind Because you merely find In all this woven wealth of rhyme Harsh figures with harsh music wound, The uncouth voice of gorgeous birds, A ruby carcanet of sound, A cloud of lovely words? I am, you say, no magic rod, No cry oracular, No swart and ominous star, No Sinai thunder voicing God. I have no burden to my song, No smouldering word instinct with fire, No spell to chase triumphant wrong, No spirit-sweet desire. Mine is not Byron’s lightning spear, Nor Wordsworth’s lucid strain Nor Shelley’s lyric pain, Nor Keats’, the poet without peer. I by the Indian waters vast Did glimpse the magic of the past, And on the oaten pipe I play Warped echoes of an earlier day. To a Hero-Worshipper - II My friend, when first my spirit woke, I trod the scented maze Of Fancy’s myriad ways, I studied Nature like a book Men rack for meanings: yet I find No rubric in the scarlet rose, No moral in the murmuring wind, No message in the snows. For me the daisy shines a star, The crocus flames a spire, A horn of golden fire, Narcissus glows a silver bar: Cowslips, the golden breath of God, I deem the poet’s heritage, And lilies silvering the sod Breathe fragrance from his page. No herald of the sun am I But in a moonlit vale A russet nightingale Who pours sweet song, he knows not why, Who pours like wine a gurgling note Paining with sound his swarthy throat, Who pours sweet song he recks not why Nor hushes ever lest he die. Read The Poem Online: Click here to read
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