Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 3. Practical Guidance for Aspiring Writers
Remarks on English Usage

On Some Words and Expressions Used by Writers of the Ashram [8]

What do I find this afternoon? Just read:

Suddenly

From motionless battalions as outride

A speed disperse of horsemen, from that mass

Of livid menace went a frail light cloud

Rushing through heaven, and behind it streamed

The downpour all in wet and greenish lines.

This is from your own Urvasie! Of course, it is possible that the printer has omitted a terminal “d” — but is that really the explanation?

I dare say I tried to Latinise. But that doesn’t make it a permissible form. If it is obsolete, it must remain obsolete. I thought at first it was an archaism you were trying on, I seemed to remember something of the kind, but as I could find it nowhere I gave up the idea — it was probably my own crime that I remembered.

29 June 1937