Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

CWSA 27

Fragment ID: 7332

The Line and the Poem [2]

The first line [in a poem sent for approval] is one I have used before, but it didn’t stir you so much, perhaps because the necklace of which it was one jewel was not harmoniously beautiful.

Naturally – poetry is not a matter of separate lines – a poem is beautiful as a whole – when it is perfect each line has its own beauty but also the beauty of the whole.

4 November 1938