The Dark and Sombre Attire, p. 350

Opening Remarks
The last bit of purification is when one passes through the thick night. Then the difference between the day and night is lost due to the dense packed clouds and tempestuous rain. It is last thrashing before autumn sets in.

Tempest’s shout
Then all was a swift stride, a sibilant race,
Or all was tempest’s shout and water’s fall.

Then all turned into the loud roar of winds in a tempest mixed with the battering of rains. It was as a swift decisive stride racing forwards with a hissing sound indicative of fury.

Grey floor of day
A dimness sagged on the grey floor of day,
Its dingy sprawling length joined morn to eve,
Wallowing in sludge and shower it reached black dark.

Day turned dim and grey with the dark, dense clouds overhanging the earth. It stretched through sludge and shower towards the black dark night where no star or moon could be seen.

Dull dress
Day a half darkness wore as its dull dress.

Day turned half dark seemed dull and lacking in lustre.

Heaven a dismal block
Light looked into dawn’s tarnished glass and met
Its own face there, twin to a half-lit night’s:
Downpour and drip and seeping mist swayed all
And turned dry soil to bog and reeking mud:
Earth was a quagmire, heaven a dismal block.

The entire field looked the same grey or dark from dawn to dusk There was an immense downpour and the mist covering our vision until the soil of earth was thoroughly kneaded into a boggy mass and full of soft and wet mud.

The dungeon sun
None saw through dank drenched weeks the dungeon sun.

The vision was obscured due to the overwhelming darkness.

Brief lived hope
Even when no turmoil vexed air’s sombre rest,
Or a faint ray glimmered through weeping clouds
As a sad smile gleams veiled by returning tears,
All promised brightness failed at once denied
Or, soon condemned, died like a brief-lived hope.

There were moments when a little sad smile escaped the clouds through the sun but soon it was veiled by tears of rain that flowed through again. The ray of hope was faint and the promise of brightness soon seemed to be denied and fade away like a brief-lived hope.

Last massive deluge
Then a last massive deluge thrashed dead mire
And a subsiding mutter left all still,
Or only the muddy creep of sinking floods
Or only a whisper and green toss of trees.

Then a last final sweeping deluge that drowned and thrashed the soil of earth thoroughly came. After it had passed it subsided leaving all still h the last mutter and seeping of the waters going below the ground. A gentle whisper of the trees was heard as the winds swept through them.

Closing Remarks
Through the season of rain, Sri Aurobindo describes to the least detail the process of purification. It is this experience that is reflected through the mood of earth during the rainy season.