Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 2. On Poets and Poetry
Comments on the Work of Poets of the Ashram

Jyotirmayi

কোন গোপন মায়ায় তিমির ছায়ায়

গ্রহ শশী নীড় বাঁধে —

নিশি আলো ফুল মালা গাঁথে

ঘন যামিনীর কোলে সুর-সম দোলে

কোটি তারা — ঘিরি'চাঁদে!

ত্তগো স্বপন-তরির গীতি-দীপালির

যে পথে পরাণ খোলে

কেন প্রখর দিবসে গগন-সরসে

আঁথি সেই পথ ভোলে!

কেন কমলা লুকায়ে ব্যথা-বীথিছায়ে

অলকা রাগিণী সাধে!

বুঝি উজল প্রহরে — সে সুধা শিহরে,

কৌমুদী-হিয়া কাঁদে!

kona gopana māẏāẏa timira chāẏaẏa

graha śaśī nīḋa bāṁdha —

niśi ālo-phula mālā gāṁthe!

ghana yāminīra kole sura-sama dole

koṭi tārā — ghiri' cāṁde!

ttago sbapana-tarira gīti-dīpālira

ye pathe parāṇa khole,

kena prakhara dibase gagana-sarase

āṁthi sei patha bhole!

kena kamalā lukāẏe byathā-bīthichāẏe

alakā rāgiṇī sādhe!

bujhi ujala prahare — se sudhā śihare,

kaumudī-hiẏā kāṁde!

I find no difficulty in the last stanza of Jyotirmayi’s poem nor any in connecting it with the two former stanzas. It is a single feeling and subjective idea or vision expressing itself in three facets. In the full night of the spirit there is a luminosity from above in the very heart of the darkness — imaged by the moon and stars in the bosom of the Night. (The night-sky with the moon (spiritual light) and the stars is a well-known symbol and it is seen frequently by sadhaks even when they do not know its meaning.) In that night of the spirit is the Dream to which or through which a path is found that in the ordinary light of waking day one forgets or misses. In the night of the spirit are shadowy avenues of pain, but even in that shadow the Power of Beauty and Beatitude sings secretly and unseen the strains of Paradise. But in the light of day the mystic heart of moonlight sorrowfully weeps, suppressed, for, even though the nectar of it is there behind, it falters away from this garish light — because it is itself a subtle thing of dream, not of conscious waking mind-nature. That is how I understand or rather try mentally to express it. In this kind of poetry it is a mistake to fix a very intellectual or a very abstract sense on what should be kept vague in outline but vivid in feeling — by mentalising one puts at once too much and too little in it.

10 June 1936