Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1938

Letter ID: 2058

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

March 14, 1938

“O symbols of His jewelled reverie

Burn myriad-hued

On my diamond altar a prophecy

Of His solitude.”

You shift the accent on “prophecy”?

I don’t see how shifting the accent on prophecy (quite impossible) would make it better. There would be no rhyme as écy can’t rhyme with rie, but only with “greasy” or “fleecy” and the whole thing would sound like an Italian talking English. I take “altar a” as a dactyl – a light dactyl can sometimes replace a trochee.