Two measures are there of the cosmic dance.
Always we hear the tread of Kali’s feet
Measuring in rhythms of pain and grief and chance
Life’s game of hazard terrible and sweet.
The ordeal of the veiled Initiate,
The hero soul at play with Death’s embrace,
Wrestler in the dread gymnasium of Fate
And sacrifice a lonely path to Grace,
Man’s sorrows made a key to the Mysteries,
Truth’s narrow road out of Time’s wastes of dream,
The soul’s seven doors from Matter’s tomb to rise,
Are the common motives of her tragic theme.
But when shall Krishna’s dance through Nature move,
His mask of sweetness, laughter, rapture, love?
Notes on Text
15 September 1939. Published with “The Infinitesimal Infinite” and “Man the Enigma” in Sri Aurobindo Circle in 1948. Four handwritten and two typed drafts precede the Circle publication.
