Man, the Thinking Animal

By Sri Aurobindo

A trifling unit in a boundless plan
Amidst the enormous insignificance
Of the unpeopled cosmos’ fire-whirl dance,
Earth, as by accident, engendered man:

A creature of his own grey ignorance,
A mind half-shadow and half-gleam, a breath
That wrestles, captive in a world of death,
To live some lame brief years. Yet his advance,

Attempt of a divinity within,
A consciousness in the inconscient Night,
To realise its own supernal Light
Confronts the ruthless forces of the Unseen.

Aspiring to godhead from insensible clay
He travels slow-footed towards the eternal day.