I saw my soul a traveller through Time;
        From life to life the cosmic ways it trod,
Obscure in the depths and on the heights sublime,
        Evolving from the word into the god.

A spark of the eternal Fire, it came
        To build a house in Matter for the Unborn.
The inconscient sunless Night received the flame;
        In the brute seed of things dumb and forlorn.

Life stirred and Thought outlined a gleaming shape
        Till on the stark inanimate earth could move,
Born to somnambulist Nature in her sleep
        A thinking creature who can hope and love.

Still by slow steps the miracle goes on,
The Immortal’s gradual birth mid mire and stone.

27, 29-9-1939

Sri Aurobindo

Reference: # 115 in “Les poèmes de Sri Aurobindo” (bilingual edition)
also in “Last Poems” – 29
all published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram – Pondicherry