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 Savitri

Comments on Specific Lines and Passages of the Poem [22]

The calm immensities of spirit space,

The golden plateaus of immortal Fire,

The moon-flame oceans of unfallen Bliss. [cf. p. 47]

Less than 20 lines earlier you have

Beyond life’s arc in spirit’s immensities.

Is it not possible to recast a little the first half of that line?

“Immensities” was the proper word because it helped to give the whole soul-scape of those worlds — the immensities of space, the plateaus of fire, the oceans of bliss. “Infinities” could just replace it, but now something has to be sacrificed. The only thing I can think of now is

The calm immunity of spirit space.

22 May 1937