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 the Work of Poets of the Ashram

Nirodbaran [1]

What do you say to today’s poem?

দিনান্তে কল্পনাময়ী কনকদুহিতা

ত্রকাকী বসিয়া ত্তই বিটপী-তলায়,

সমুত্থিত স্বরূপের সরসী দোলায়

চেয়ে থাকে নির্নিমেষ; অতল-প্রোথিতা

নির্ঝরিণি-বিদ্যুতের বিলাপ-কাহিনী

— ধমনী শোণিতে যেন স্তম্ভিত বিষাদ —

ঢালে আলোকঠ হ'তে সে অভিসম্পাত

গন্ধহারা পবনের তরঙ্গবাহিনী

নিয়ে যায় তারি মন্ত্ররশ্মির ভূষণ

নিঃশব্দ ঊষার নীল স্বয়ম্ভূ সাগরে;

নিহিত রবির লিখা অসাঙ্গ স্পন্দন

সৃষ্টি করে ইন্দ্রজাল-মন্দ্রিত অন্তরে

অলোক রহস্য-ছবি; সে প্রোজ্জ্বল হাসি

বিধাতার মর্মঝরা স্বর্ণাঙ্কিত বাঁশি ।

dinānte kalpanāmaẏī kanakaduhitā

trakākī basiẏā ttai biṭapī-talāẏa,

samutthita sbarūpera sarasī dolāẏa

ceẏe thāke nirnimeṣa; atala-prothitā

nirjhariṇī-bidyutera bilāpa-kāhinī

— dhamanī-śoṇite yena stambhita biṣāda —

ḍhāle ắlokaṭha h'te se abhisampāta

gandhahārā pabanera taraṅgabāhinī

niẏe yāẏa tāri mantraraśmira bhūṣaṇa

niḥśabda ūṣāra nīla sbaẏambhū sāgare;

nihita rabira likhā asāṅga spandana

sṛṣṭi kare indrajāla-mandrita antare

aloka rahasya-chabi; se projjbala hāsi

bidhātāra marmajharā sbarṇāṅkita bāṁśi

Very fine, this time.

Well, let us put it in English — without trying to be too literal, turning the phrases to suit the English language. If there are any mistakes of rendering they can be adjusted.

At the day-end behold the Golden Daughter of Imaginations —

She sits alone under the Tree of Life —

A form of the Truth of Being has risen before her rocking there like a lake

And on it is her unwinking gaze. But from the unfathomed Abyss where it was buried, upsurges

A tale of lamentation, a torrent-lightning passion,

A melancholy held fixed in the flowing blood of the veins,—

A curse thrown from a throat of light.

The rivers of a wind that has lost its perfumes are bearing away

On their waves the Mantra-rays that were her ornaments

Into the blue self-born sea of a silent Dawn;

The ceaseless vibration-scroll of a hidden Sun

Creates within her, where all is a magic incantation,

A picture of the transcendent Mystery; — that luminous laughter

(Or, A mystery-picture of the Transcendent?)

Is like the voice of a gold-fretted flute flowing from the inmost heart of the Creator.

Now, I don’t know whether that was what you meant, but it is the meaning I find there. Very likely it has no head or tail, but it has a body and a very beautiful body — and I ask with Baron, why do you want to understand? why do you want to cut it up into the dry mathematical figures of the Intellect? Hang it all, sir! In spite of myself you are making me a convert to the Housman theory and Surrealism. No, Sir — feel, instand, overstand, interstand, but don’t try to understand the creations of a supra-intellectual Beauty.

It is enough to feel and grasp without trying to “understand” the creations of a supra-intellectual Beauty.

17 February 1937