Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1938

Letter ID: 2119

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

June 4, 1938

[Sri Aurobindo and the Mother]

Any influence of Wordsworth in my poem?

Good Lord, any? There are whole chunks of Wordsworth – esp. the childhood’s days and growing years etc.

This poem has opened a new vista for me and gives me the hope that perhaps long poems and new things are not impossible, what?

If I can improve it further, give me the suggestions, and I shall do it.

It is a very uncertain mixture. Some lines and stanzas are so merely Wordsworth that they can’t pass. The whole childhood and fading business is Wordsworth and everybody would ask, what’s this old stuff copied here for? Much of the rest is Wordsworth romanticised. On the other hand there are blocks of mysticism. The poetry is good and there are very fine lines and stanzas, but as a whole it must be more inspired and Wordsworth chucked out and replaced by Nirod.

R.B. has very little pain [below the navel] even while walking. But no appetite at all.

[Mother:] I find her rather yellow in colour.