Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

Letter ID: 188

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

1932 (?)

...P.S. Did you read Cromnur Byng’s compliments on my poems (I had sent him about a dozen of my latest) that he “greatly admired my beautiful poems?” What would Thomson say to that? If even my beginner’s poems are so appreciated (for I would not think he was insincere here – Englishmen are very chary of praise in such matters) how would he respond to the magnificent mature poems of Harin? By the way please send us a version of your Thomsonian letter to Nirod so that we may ponder over and grow wiser at leisure. I really need some polite version thereof. Also did you note Saratchandra’s high praise (on back of Dola) calling me a “great writer?” You are bound to note it – please.

I did not notice Saratchandra’s praise – as I only looked at the first and second pages and not at the back. I shall see now. I read Cromnur Byng’s letter in a hurry and did not quite seize about the beautiful poems. I should very much like to know which poems they were.

I have been too dreadfully busy to get together the new version of my random and violent remarks (it was not a letter but scattered comments) on the subject of English poetry by Indians. [?] wrote Thompson has pronounced I didn’t know English. Perhaps Cromnur Byng doesn’t know English either! That would explain everything.

Harin’s metres

(1) “Drowse Deeps”

This metre could be taken as iambic with occasional [?] lines such as the first or trochaic with an occasional excess syllable at the beginning. But the first seems to me obviously the right thing, since several of the “iambic” lines are plainly iambic in movement and can hardly be “excess syllable” trochaic, e.g.

Signs of | the day | break’s thirst |

which one could hardly see

Signs | of the | daybreak’s | thirst,

as the “of” could not bear the stress.

(2) “Desert”

This seems to be a metre on that principle of eight stresses to a line, the part being merely iambic and anapaestic, but often there is a stress in the first syllable of the line which gives it a trochaic-dactylic air. But this may be explained away as a truncated iamb, e.g.

While | I stand | like a straight | tall tree | in the cen|tre of Time | a de|sert bore |.

The lines are sometimes cut into halves of four stresses each, sometimes the halves are run into each other, e.g.

Where ei|ther at noon | or night | I am conscious ||

Of a deep|ful glow | which no cloud | has pleased ||

where there are evidently two halves, otherwise the last syllable of “conscious?” would not be admissible.

(3) “The Miracle”

There is no paean I think: Harin must have meant to stress

With the re|flexed efful|gence of my | lone dreams |

“Reflexed” as a past participle = recurved has its stress on the last syllable but Harin must have used in the sense of “becoming a reflex”, that is carrying in it the reflected image of my dreams. “Reflex” the noun (or adjective) is accented on the first syllable.

I am glad you are taking up writing again. I always think that it is a mistake at this stage to give up mental activity – that it should be done as the exercise of a god-given talent to be used for the true purpose is quite the right thing and my experience is that it can help rather than hinder the purification. Fame you already have and that need no longer attract or divert you.