Sri Aurobindo-A God's Labour

A God's Labour
I have gathered my dreams in a silver airBetween the gold and the blueAnd wrapped them softly and left them there,My jewelled dreams of you.
I had hoped to build a rainbow bridgeMarrying the soil to the skyAnd sow in this dancing planet midgeThe moods of infinity.
But too bright were our heavens, too far away,Too frail their ethereal stuff;Too splendid and sudden our light could not stay;The roots were not deep enough.
He who would bring the heavens hereMust descend himself into clayAnd the burden of earthly nature bearAnd tread the dolorous way.
Coercing my godhead I have come downHere on the sordid earth,Ignorant, labouring, human grownTwixt the gates of death and birth.
I have been digging deep and longMid a horror of filth and mireA bed for the golden river’s song,A home for the deathless fire.
I have laboured and suffered in Matter’s nightTo bring the fire to man;But the hate of hell and human spiteAre my meed since the world began.
For man’s mind is the dupe of his animal self;Hoping its lusts to win,He harbours within him a grisly ElfEnamoured of sorrow and sin.
The grey Elf shudders from heaven’s flameAnd from all things glad and pure;Only by pleasure and passion and painHis drama can endure.
All around is darkness and strife;For the lamps that men call sunsAre but halfway gleams on this stumbling lifeCast by the Undying Ones.
Man lights his little torches of hopeThat lead to a failing edge;A fragment of Truth is his widest scope,An inn his pilgrimage.
The Truth of truths men fear and deny,The Light of lights they refuse;To ignorant gods they lift their cryOr a demon altar choose.
All that was found must again be sought,Each enemy slain revives,Each battle for ever is fought and refoughtThrough vistas of fruitless lives.
My gaping wounds are a thousand and oneAnd the Titan kings assail,But I cannot rest till my task is doneAnd wrought the eternal will.
How they mock and sneer, both devils and men!"Thy hope is Chimera’s headPainting the sky with its fiery stain;Thou shalt fall and thy work lie dead.
"Who art thou that babblest of heavenly easeAnd joy and golden roomTo us who are waifs on inconscient seasAnd bound to life’s iron doom?
"This earth is ours, a field of NightFor our petty flickering fires.How shall it brook the scared LightOr suffer a god’s desires?
"Come, let us slay him and end his course!Then shall our hearts have releaseFrom the burden and call of his glory and forceAnd the curb of his wide white peace."
But the god is there in my mortal breastWho wrestles with error and fateAnd tramples a road through mire and wasteFor the nameless Immaculate.
A voice cried, "Go where none have gone!Dig deeper, deeper yetTill thou reach the grim foundation stoneAnd knock at the keyless gate."
I saw that a falsehood was planted deepAt the very root of thingsWhere the grey Sphinx guards God’s riddle sleepOn the Dragon’s outspread wings.
I left the surface gods of mindAnd life’s unsatisfied seasAnd plunged through the body’s alleys blindTo the nether mysteries.
I have delved through the dumb Earth’s dreadful heartAnd heard her black mass’ bell.I have seen the source whence her agonies partAnd the inner reason of hell.
Above me the dragon murmurs moanAnd the goblin voices flit;I have pierced the Void where Thought was born,I have walked in the bottomless pit.
On a desperate stair my feet have trodArmoured with boundless peace,Bringing the fires of the splendour of GodInto the human abyss.
He who I am was with me still;All veils are breaking now.I have heard His voice and borne His willon my vast untroubled brow.
The gulf twixt the depths and the heights is bridgedAnd the golden waters pourDown the sapphire mountain rainbow-ridgedAnd glimmer from shore to shore.
Heaven’s fire is lit in the breast of the earthAnd the undying suns here burn;Through a wonder cleft in the bounds of birthThe incarnate spirits yearn
Like flames to the kingdoms of Truth and Bliss:Down a gold-red stair-way wendThe radiant children of ParadiseClarioning darkness’s end.
A little more and the new life’s doorsShall be carved in silver lightWith its aureate roof and mosaic floorsIn a great world bare and bright.
I shall leave my dreams in their argent air,For in a raiment of gold and blueThere shall move on the earth embodied and fairThe living truth of you.
31-7-1935
Sri Aurobindo

"yes..we cry,we wail in the dark..praying for mannas and intervention from the Divine..and the divine always answers..but we continue to live and breathe in the darkness...we are deeply attached to things down below...why do we love so much our past and in things that are dead and buried deep?is it possible that our actions have resulted in the havens from above descending into the abyss ?..no!..we must constantly aspire for the supreme..that's the only thing that matters!.."