Is this the end

Is this the end of all that we have been,

And all we did or dreamed,—

A name unremembered and a form undone,—

Is this the end?

A body rotting under a slab of stone

Or turned to ash in fire,

A mind dissolved, lost its forgotten thoughts,—

Is this the end?

Our little hours that were and are no more,

Our passions once so high

Being mocked by the still earth and calm sunshine,—

Is this the end?

Our yearnings for the human Godward climb

Passing to other hearts

Deceived, while smiles towards death and hell the world,—

Is this the end?

Fallen is the harp; shattered it lies and mute;

Is the unseen player dead?

Because the tree is felled where the bird sang,

Must the song too hush?

One in the mind who planned and willed and thought,

Worked to reshape earth’s fate,

One in the heart who loved and yearned and hoped,

Does he too end?

The Immortal in the mortal is his Name;

An artist Godhead here

Ever remoulds himself in diviner shapes,

Unwilling to cease

Till all is done for which the stars were made,

Till the heart discovers God

And the soul knows itself. And even then

There is no end.  

3 June 1945

Sri Aurobindo: Collected Poems, SABCL, Vol. 5, p. 108

“A sad poem,” the Mother seems to have told Amal Kiran.

“Is this the end?” But this is simply a rhetorical question and therefore carries in it its own answer. The answer is: “No, it is not. It cannot be so.” Last two stanzas clearly bring out the prospects for which the Immortal in the mortal has been working since the beginning of the process. There is now a certainty and hence the Yogi-Poet makes the assertion that it is going to be what was willed, that it will be fulfilled.