Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1937

Letter ID: 1971

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

June 16, 1937

You are surely surprised, staggered at the long ethereal lyric I’ve sent you!

Staggered is not the word for it. What on earth have you done?

See, Sir, I sat down to write and it came. I feel it is a good fish.

Fish or fishy?

I have caught, though I’m not sure whether it is a sprat, trout or a salmon, which?

A sprat, sir, a sprat and a weird one at that.

“Hush, tread softly like a bride,

See, the night is dreaming.”

Good God!

“Between the shadows of her curved lips

A white smile is brimming.”

Christ! Woogh!

“Oh, what angels have come to kiss

Her virgin face.

What rapture thrills her soul

With diamond rays!”

Holy Virgin!

“Do not wake her, let her sleep

Through the desert-day.”

Who? Night? Where on earth is she sleeping?

A bit of philosophy and metaphysics has spoilt the poem intended to be a fine piece of poetry, no?

My dear sir, what possessed you to write in this vein of the most tender and infantile Victorian sentimentalism in this year of the Lord 1937? And who or what on earth are you writing about? Night sleeping? What’s the idea? It sounds as if it were the sleep of Little Nell (Dickens).

“Between the crescent tender lips...”

[Sri Aurobindo underlined “tender”.]

Woogh! Night’s lips are tender?

Please try to restore it to its deserving beauty.

I am afraid I can do nothing unless you shed some light on what you can possibly mean. At present I am at sea.

A rather funny idea, no?

Very funny.

Can Night sleep through desert-day?

Never heard of her behaving in this way before.

It will take 3 or 4 days to get Chyavanprash from Madras. Meanwhile A can take Kola, if he wants.

Very well.