Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
CWSA 27
Fragment ID: 7091
Arjava (J. A. Chadwick) [2]
Lift the Stone
Before the chronicles of time began
Or sundering space her canopy unfurled,
The uncreated Over-Thought had plan
Itself to lose – self-offered, form a world.
Smooth as untrodden snow the gleaming Host,
Fraught with all history, ringed by opal pyx,
Shone through eternity rays innermost
’Pon1 all symbolic forms that intermix
Silence of Heaven with lisping speech. God takes
His very substance that from Beauty came;
Then with world-urging power He freely breaks
The bread that builds the fabric of His Name.
Seven great realms the fragments make; and we
In meanest dust may touch Divinity.
You seem to me to have acquired already the three most important elements of poetic excellence.
(1) Mastery of the rhythmic form – at any rate of the right rhythm and building of the sonnet form you are using.
(2) A just felicity and firm construction of the thought architecture proper to the sonnet.
(3) A very considerable power of harmonious and effective poetic diction and suggestive image.
The last seven lines are truly very fine poetry – but the whole sonnet is remarkable in form and power.
6 May 1931
1 Why not “On”; it would be more euphonious.