Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 1. On His Poetry and Poetic Method
On Savitri

Comments on Specific Lines and Passages of the Poem [47]

Their slopes were a laughter of delightful dreams ...

[eight lines]

There Love fulfilled her gold and roseate dreams

And Strength her crowned and mighty reveries.

[two lines]

Dream walked along the highway of the stars; ...

[cf. pp 234–35]

“Gold and roseate dreams” cannot be changed. “Muse” would make it at once artificial. “Dreams” alone is the right word there. “Reveries” also cannot be changed, especially as it is not any particular “reverie” that is meant. Also, “dream” at the beginning of a later line departs into another idea and is appropriate in its place; I see no objection to this purposeful repetition. Anyway the line cannot be altered. The only concession I can make to you is to alter the first.

1948