Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1937

Letter ID: 1976

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

June 21, 1937

In this poem a pale moonlit night appears mist-laden, and leaves seem to smile...

Well you have sharp eyes to see the leaves smile through a mist-laden night.

I have made the leaves quiver, if you won’t quiver at it.

I read it without a quiver.

Don’t see the link of the first line with what follows... Instead of “weary traveller” it could as well be “weary sheep”, I suppose! “I wait and wait like a weary tramp.”

Sheep!!! why not “cat” at once? “I wait and wait like a weary cat” would be very fine and original.

As it is, the poem doesn’t seem to say much, does it? God knows what to write next.

If God knows it is all right. Evidently he knows what he is doing.

It’s a dream which is nothing extraordinary.

Evidently you don’t know when you are inspired.

What kind of poetry am I writing now? Very funny surrealism!

There is nothing surrealist nor funny.

And funnier still that I should write these poems – a logical, medical, practical man, what?

That is your idea of yourself? Queer.