For even the close partners of her thoughts
Who could have walked the nearest to her ray,
Worshipped the power and light they felt in her
But could not match the measure of her soul.
She had come into the mortal body’s room
To play at ball with Time and Circumstance.
A joy in the world her master movement here,
The passion of the game lighted her eyes:
A marriage with eternity divinised Time.
There Life pursued unwearied of her sport
Joy in her heart and laughter on her lips,
The bright adventure of God’s game of Chance.
Her look, her smile awoke celestial sense
Even in earth-stuff, and their intense delight
Poured a supernal beauty on men’s lives.
The omniscient Goddess leaned across the breadths
That wrap the fated journeyings of the stars
And saw the spaces ready for her feet.
The little plot of our mortality
Touched by this tenant from the heights became
A playground of the living infinite.
A cry and leap and hurry were around,
The stealthy footfalls of her chasing things,
Invaded by beauty’s universal revel
Her being’s fibre reached out vibrating
And claimed deep union with its outer selves,
The fluctuating chance turns of her mood,
Works out her meanings she seems not to know
And serves her secret purpose in long Time.
Her measure they could not reach but bore her touch,
Answering with the flower’s answer to the sun
They gave themselves to her and asked no more.
Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles and the East-West Cultural Center 