To Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose.
Young image of what old Rishi of Ind
Art thou, O Arya savant, Jagadish?
What unseen hermitage hast thou raised up
From ‘neath the dry dust of this city of stone?
Amidst the crowd’s mad turmoil, whence hast thou
That peace in which thou in an instant stoodst
Alone at the deep centre of all thingsโ
Where dwells the One alone in sun, moon, flowers,
In leaves, and beasts and birds, and dust and stones,
โWhere still one sleepless Life on its own lap
Rocks all things with a wordless melody,
All things that move or that seem motionless!
While we were drunk with the remote and vain
Dead glories of our past,โin alien dress
Walking and talking in an alien tongue,
In the caricature of other menโ
Their style, their bearing,โwhile we shouted, yell’d
Frog-like with swollen throat in our dark well,
O, in what vast remoteness wert thou then?
Where didst thou spread thy hush’d and lonely matโ
Thy mat of meditation? Thou, thy mind
Curdling into calm gravity, didst plunge
In thy great quest after the viewless ray,
Beyond the utmost borders of this world
Of visible form, there where the Rishis old
Oped, and passed in beyond the lion-gates
Of the Manifold and stood before the One,
Silent in awe and wonder, with joined hands!
O Hermit, call thou in the authentic words
Of that old hymn called Sama; “Rise! Awake!”
Call to the man who boasts his Sastric lore
From vain pedantic wranglings profitless,
Call to that foolish braggart to come forth
Out on the face of Nature, this broad earth.
Send forth this call unto thy scholar band;
Together round thy sacrifice of fire
Let them all gather. So may our India,
Our ancient land, unto herself return.
O once again return to steadfast work,
To duty and devotion, to her trance
Of earnest meditation; let her sit
Once more unruffled, greedless, strifeless, pure
O once again upon her lofty seat
And platform, teacher of all other lands.
Translated by Manmohan Ghose (brother of Sri Aurobindo)
