W H O
- In the blue of the sky, in the green of the forest,
- Whose is the hand that has painted the glow?
- When the winds were asleep in the womb of the ether,
- Who was it roused them and bade them to blow?
- He is lost in the heart, in the cavern of Nature,
- He is found in the brain where He builds up the thought:
- In the pattern and bloom of the flowers He is woven,
- In the luminous net of the stars He is caught.
- In the strength of a man, in the beauty of woman,
- In the laugh of a boy, in the blush of a girl;
- The hand that sent Jupiter spinning through heaven,
- Spends all its cunning to fashion a curl.
- These are His works and His veils and His shadows;
- But where is He then? by what name is He known?
- Is He Brahma or Vishnu? a man or a woman?
- Bodied or bodiless? twin or alone?
- We have love for a boy who is dark and resplendent,
- A woman is lord of us, naked and fierce.
- We have seen Him a-muse on the snow of the mountains,
- We have watched Him at work in the heart of the spheres.
- We will tell the whole world of His ways and His cunning:
- He has rapture of torture and passion and pain;
- He delights in our sorrow and drives us to weeping,
- Then lures with His joy and His beauty again.
- All music is only the sound of His laughter;
- All beauty the smile of His passionate bliss;
- Our lives are His heart-beats, our rapture the bridal
- Of Radha and Krishna, our love is their kiss.
- He is strength that is loud in the blare of the trumpets,
- And He rides in the car and He strikes in the spears;
- He slays without stint and is full of compassion;
- He wars for the world and its ultimate years.
- In the sweep of the worlds, in the surge of the ages,
- Ineffable, mighty, majestic and pure,
- Beyond the last pinnacle seized by the thinker
- He is throned in His seats that for ever endure.
- The Master of man and his infinite Lover,
- He is close to our hearts, had we vision to see;
- We are blind with our pride and the pomp of our passions,
- We are bound in our thoughts where we hold ourselves free.
- It is He in the sun who is ageless and deathless,
- And into the midnight His shadow is thrown;
- When darkness was blind and engulfed within darkness,
- He was seated within it immense and alone.
Sri Aurobindo
SABCL Vol. 5, page 40
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