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

Amal Kiran (K. D. Sethna) [10]

Would you describe the following poem of mine as “coin of the fancy”? What is the peculiarity of poetic effect, if any, here?

Night

No more the press and play of light release

Thrilling bird-news between high columned trees.

Upon the earth a blank of slumber drops:

Only cicadas toil in grassy shops —

But all their labours seem to cry “Peace, peace.”

Nought travels down the roadway save the breeze;

And though beyond our gloom — throb after throb —

Gathers the great heart of a silver mob,

There is no haste in heaven, no frailty mars

The very quiet business of the stars.

It is very successful — the last two lines are very fine and the rest have their perfection. I should call it a mixture of inspiration and cleverness — or perhaps ingenious discovery would be a better phrase. I am referring to such images as “thrilling bird-news”, “grassy shops”, “silver mob”. Essentially they are conceits but saved by the note of inspiration running through the poem — while in the last line the conceit “quiet business” is lifted beyond itself and out of conceitedness by the higher tone at which the inspiration arrives there.

20 August 1936