Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 1. On His Poetry and Poetic Method
On Some Poems Written during the 1930s

In Horis Aeternum and The Bird of Fire

Is The Bird of Fire more of a compromise between a quantitative and a purely stress scansion than In Horis Aeternum (where the quantity-aspect seems to be less important than in The Bird of Fire)?

In the In Horis Aeternum I did not follow any regular scheme of quantities, letting them come as was needed by the rhythm. In The Bird of Fire I started with the idea of a quantitative element but abandoned it and remodelled the part of the poem in which I had used the quantitative system.