Both the poems have been titled as Krishna and the writer of these pieces is no one else but Sri Aurobindo. If one begins with, ‘At last I find a meaning of soul’s birth’, the second one starts with, ‘O immense Light and thou, O spirit-wide boundless Space’ and the difference is but in phraseology and syntax otherwise the spirit is the same as the former tells about soul’s birth, universe terrible and  sweet, hungry heart of earth, Krishna’s feet, immortal eyes, Lover’s flute, ecstasy’s surprise and so on; while the latter about explores Self of self, Soul of Space, Fount of Time, Heart of hearts, Mind of minds and His strange mystery, but the things appear to be an abstract of mind, mass, matter, spirit and metaphysics.

If one expects for a colorful painting in words, one should discard one’s infatuation for finding the same as Aurobindo is but a metaphysician. Poetry comes to come through rhetoric and prosody, the rules of grammar as for constructing lines laced with intellectuality and metaphysics. Poetry to him is an exercise-book of classical spirit and temperament.

The soul’s birth he can feel it about in this universe of sweet and terrible experiences. The hungry heart of earth wants to touch the feet of Krishna. The beauty of immortal eyes, he has come to mark and read into. How the passion for the Lover’s flute? But the things lie in muted. Sorrow of the heart cannot be laid bare of. Music draws it nearer and nearer. Nature which is vibrant seems to be clamoring for a grasp. This earth is the Leela ground of His. The throbs of the world can be felt through his body of touch and sensations.

When he refers to soul’s birth, we get reminded of the discourses of the Bhagavad-Gita. This cycle of eternal birth and death Adi Shankaracharya too talks it about.  The beauty of the immortal eyes, the poet has felt as ecstatic effulgence and expressions gushing out of. He has heard it about the passion emanating from the Lover’s flute. Imagination takes wings, life shudders with a strange felicity. Nature is appalled to feeling the touch of the Divine which is but a germination of idea. The seer also seems to be referring to the Prakriti-Purusha concept of the Indian motif.

Krishna

At last I find a meaning of soul’s birth
Into this universe terrible and sweet,
I who have felt the hungry heart of earth
Aspiring beyond heaven to Krishna’s feet.

I have seen the beauty of immortal eyes,
And heard the passion of the Lover’s flute,
And known a deathless ecstasy’s surprise
And sorrow in my heart for ever mute.

Nearer and nearer now the music draws,
Life shudders with a strange felicity;
All Nature is a wide enamored pause
Hoping her lord to touch, to clasp, to be.

For this one moment lived the ages past;
The world now throbs fulfilled in me at last.

Krishna is Light and Space which He contains in going along with. Space and Time, everything but adds to the void writ large adding to the worry, anxiety of man for being alone. But in the selves there lies in the Self, the Mind of the minds. His sweet ecstasy, we can feel it. Instead of the void telling upon lives, there is One who holds to clasp the flute and keeps blowing it with the red lips. His image is in it all and the things are the shadows of His. Creation’s fancies and whims get reflected through His reflections. What is that has been hidden by space? His gloried face, deathless limbs can never be hidden. Why to be lonely feeling the weight of the void? He is therein, in all of our activities.

Krishna
(Cretic)

O immense Light and thou, O spirit-wide boundless Space,
Whom have you clasped and hid, deathless limbs, gloried face?
Vainly lie Space and Time, “Void are we, there is none.”
Vainly strive Self and World crying “I, I alone.”
One is there, Self of self, Soul of Space, Fount of Time,
Heart of hearts, Mind of minds, He alone sits, sublime.
Oh no void Absolute self-absorbed, splendid, mute,
Hands that clasp hold and red lips that kiss blow His flute.
All He loves, all He moves, all are His, all are He;
Many limbs sate His whims, bear His sweet ecstasy.
Two in One, Two who know difference rich in sense,
Two to clasp, One to be, this His strange mystery.