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

On a Bengali Translation of In Horis Aeternum [2]

But it is not the spirit in the body; it is the spirit in sense, why then দেহে [dehe]? দেহ [deha] brings in something much too solid and it would mean the soul in the body which is not at all my meaning — it is a spiritual something in sight, sound, touch etc. that catches the eternal essential in what seems to be a thing of the moment.

I may add that “moment mere” does not and cannot mean “merely one moment” — it means “something that seems to be merely of the moment”. It is not the moment that is caught but the essence of the momentary scene, etc. or as is next said something essential and eternal (not “fixed, intense”, but slight and fugitive) in a sound, smile, etc.

1934