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 Some Examples of Western Poetry (up to 1900)

Fiona Macleod

Would you please comment on the passages from Fiona Macleod?

1) So through the grey dune-grasses

Not the wind only cries,

But a dim sea-wrought Shadow

Breathes drownëd sighs.

2) ...with trampling sounds

As of herds confusedly crowding gorges? — ...

The gloom that is the hush’d air of the Grave, ...

3) As the bird of Brigid, made of foam and the pale moonwhite wine

Of dreams, flits under the sombre windless plumes of the pine.

4) ...the wheeling cry

Where in the dusk the lapwing slips and falls

From ledge to ledge of darkness.

1) There is a very distinct charm about it. I am not sure of the entire success.

2) I could not pronounce on this without seeing the poem as a whole or at least more of it. It depends on how it comes into the general scheme of the rhythm.

3) Very fine and original and authentic in rhythm, it is absolutely the native rhythm of what she expresses.

4) This I think magnificent.