Page 17 - All India Magazine Jan-2023

The Dwarf Napoleon
(Hitler. October 1939)

(This poem written in 1939 is prophetic wherein Sri Aurobindo saw
through the mask and outer façade of Hitler and the dangers to our
civilization that mankind faced due to him. Here we see him not only
exposing his asuric being and his modus operandi but also predicting
his death.)

Behold, by Maya’s fantasy of will
A violent miracle takes sudden birth,
The real grows one with the incredible.
In the control of her magician wand
The small achieves things great, the base things grand.
This puny creature would bestride the earth
Even as the immense colossus of the past.
Napoleon’s mind was swift and bold and vast,
His heart was calm and stormy like the sea,
His will dynamic in its grip and clasp.
His eye could hold a world within its grasp
And see the great and small things sovereignly.
A movement of gigantic depth and scope
He seized and gave coherence to its hope.
Far other this creature of a nether clay,
Void of all grandeur, like a gnome at play,
Iron and mud his nature’s mingled stuff,
A little limited visionary brain
Cunning and skilful in its narrow vein,
A sentimental egoist poor and rough,
Whose heart was never sweet and fresh and young,
A headlong spirit driven by hopes and fears,
Intense neurotic with his shouts and tears,
Violent and cruel, devil, child and brute,
This screaming orator with his strident tongue,

All India Magazine, January 2023 17