Bande Mataram

Sri Aurobindo 1872 (Kolkata) – 1950 (Puducherry)



Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Dark fields waving, Mother of might,
Mother free.

Glory of moonlight dreams
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, giver of ease,
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother, I kiss thy feet,
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I bow.

Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands,
When the swords flash out in twice seventy million hands
And seventy millions voices roar
Thy dreadful name from shore to shore?
With many strengths who art mighty and stored,
To thee I call, Mother and Lord!
Thou who savest, arise and save!
To her I cry who ever her foemen drave
Back from plain and sea
And shook herself free.

Thou art wisdom, thou art law,
Thou our heart, our soul, our breath,
Thou the love divine, the awe
In our hearts that conquers death.
Thine the strength that nerves the arm,
Thine the beauty, thine the charm.
Every image made divine
In our temples is but thine.

Thou art Durga, Lady and Queen,
With her hands that strike and her swords of sheen,
Thou art Lakshmi lotus-throned,
Pure and perfect without peer,
Mother, lend thine ear.
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams,
Dark of hue, O candid-fair

In thy soul, with jewelled hair
And thy glorious smile divine,
Loveliest of all earthly lands,
Showering wealth from well-stored hands!
Mother, mother mine!
Mother sweet, I bow to thee,
Mother great and free.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:19 min read
67

Quick analysis:

Scheme aBBcca bbddeexx ffgghhiiaa xjxjkkll mmcxxBBn nlfflaa
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,446
Words 264
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 6, 8, 10, 8, 8, 7

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo, born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose, was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, Maharishi, guru and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule, for a while became one of its influential leaders and then turned into a spiritual reformer, introducing his visions on human progress and spiritual evolution. Sri Aurobindo studied for the Indian civil service at King's College, Cambridge. After returning to India he took up various civil service works under the Maharaja of Baroda and started to involve himself in politics. He was imprisoned by British India for writing articles against British rule. He was released when no evidence was provided. During his stay in the jail he reputedly had mystical and spiritual experiences, after which he moved to Pondicherry, leaving politics for spiritual work. During his stay in Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo evolved a new method of spiritual practice, which he called Integral Yoga. The central theme of his vision was the evolution of human life into a life divine. He believed in a spiritual realisation that not only liberated man but also transformed his nature, enabling a divine life on earth. In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator, Mirra Alfassa, he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He died on 5 December 1950 in Pondicherry. He was the first Indian to create a major literary corpus in English. more…

All Sri Aurobindo poems | Sri Aurobindo Books

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