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

Amal Kiran (K. D. Sethna) [6]

Do you think my poem Kubla Khan will be much improved if I give it a conclusion improvised from an early, unequal, effort of mine, so that it ends:

That longing of mysterious tears

From infinite to infinite?

I write “mysterious” because Kubla, though not quite innocent of spiritual things, would not exactly agree to calling the “tears” ecstatic and thus weaken his appeal.

There is nothing more dangerous — I was going to say criminal — than to alter a perfect line or passage of poetry, especially when it is done from a mere intellectual motive. If Kubla cannot have a longing of ecstatic tears, let him go to the devil where he belongs, his limitations are no reason for spoiling a perfect thing. With “ecstatic” these two lines are authentic, inspired, inevitable — suggestive of a deep spiritual experience,— with “mysterious” they become falsely romantic and commonplace, with nothing true or genuine behind the pretentiousness of the words.

21 August 1931