To a Hero-Worshipper by Sri Aurobindo

                                    

I 

My life is then a wasted ereme,(wasteland)

My song but idle wind 

Because you merely find 

In all this woven wealth of rhyme 

Harsh figures with harsh music wound, (cut) 

The uncouth (rough) voice of gorgeous birds, 

A ruby carcanet (Necklace) of sound, 

A cloud of lovely words? 

I am, you say, no magic-rod, (Magical things ) 

No cry oracular, (prophetic) 

No swart (dark) and ominous (threatening) star, 

No Sinai-thunder voicing God, (The Lord’s Voice on Sinai - From Bible)

I have no burden to my song, 

No smouldering (process of burning slowly with smoke but no flame) word instinct with fire, 

No spell to chase (follow) triumphant (successful) wrong, 

No spirit-sweet desire.

Mine is not Byron’s (Satirist) lightning spear, (Lightning Spear is an Incantation in Elden Ring.)

Nor Wordsworth’s (Nature Poet) lucid strain (Music)

Nor Shelley’s ( Atheist) lyric pain, 

Nor Keats’, the poet without peer. (gentleman) 

I by the Indian waters vast 

Did glimpse the magic of the past, 

And on the oaten-pipe (Oat plant or natural material) I play 

Warped (deform) echoes of an earlier day. 

II 

My friend, when first my spirit woke,

I trod (Walk) the scented (smell) maze (Puzzle with twists and turns where try to find the path)

Of Fancy’s myriad (Countless) ways, 

I studied Nature like a book 

Men rack (Frame) for meanings; yet I find 

No rubric (rules) in the scarlet rose, 

No moral in the murmuring wind, 

No message in the snow. 

For me the daisy shines a star, 

The crocus flames a spire (Peak), 

A horn of golden fire, 

Narcissus (Myth of Narcissism) glows a silver bar: 

Cowslips, the golden breath of God, 

I deem (consider) the poet’s heritage, 

And lilies silvering the sod (lawn or grass)

Breathe fragrance from his page. 

No herald (messenger) of the Sun am I, 

But in a moon-lit veil (vale)

A russet (reddish brown in color) nightingale 

Who pours (flow) sweet song, he knows not why, 

Who pours like a wine a gurgling (bubble) note 

Paining (pain)with sound his swarthy throat, 

Who pours sweet song, he recks (regard)not why, 

Nor hushes (silence) ever lest he die.