A DIAMOND IS BURNING UPWARD A diamond is burning upward In the roofless chamber walled By the ivory mind; An orb entranced glows Where earth-storm never blows— But the two wide eyes are blind To its virgin soar behind Their ruby and emerald. The one pure bird finds rest In the crescent moon of a nest Which infinite boughs upbear.... Flung out on phantom air In a colour-to-colour race Yet never ending their quest, The two birds dream they fly Though fixed in the narrow sky Of a futile human face. Sri Aurobindo's Comment "It sounds very surrealistic. Images and poetr

INNERMOST Each form a dancer whose pure naked sheen Mirrors serenity, a moving sleep White-echoed out of some mysterious deep Where fade life's clamouring red and blue and green— The priestesses of virgin reverie Sway through the cavern heart of consciousness. A marble rapture fronting frozenly The cry of mortal hunger and distress, A love superb moulded to rocks of flame, A ring of rhythmic statues worship-hewn From the pale vistas of a perfect moon— They guard with silences the unbreathable Name. Sri Aurobindo's Comment "Very fine throughout. It is a combined inspiration, Illumined Mind wi

NE PLUS ULTRA A madrigal to enchant her—and no more? With the brief beauty of her face—drunk, blind To the inexhaustible vastnesses that lure The song-impetuous mind? Is the keen voice of tuneful ecstasy To be denied its winged omnipotence, Its ancient kinship to immensity And the swift suns? When mystic grandeurs urge him from behind, When all creation is a rapturous wind Driving him towards an ever-limitless goal, Can such pale moments crown the poet's soul? Shall he—born nomad of the infinite heart! Time-tamer! star-struck debauchee of light! Warrior who hurls his spirit like a dart Across the

THE HIERARCHY OF BEING Abysmal shadow of the summit-soul— Self-blinding grope toward the Sorrowless— Trance-core of labyrinthine outwardness— Visage of gloom with flowering aureole. Streak on gold streak wounding the illusive night— Miraculous monarchy of eagled gaze— Eternal truth's time-measuring sun-blaze— Lonely omnipotence locked in self-light. Sri Aurobindo's Comment "I can hardly say—it is quite clear to me, but I don't know what would happen to the ordinary reader. It is a fine poem, the last stanza remarkable." * (Now I pick up the overhead theme at its culmination, the supreme plane whose f

SAVITRI A rose of dawn, her smile lights every gaze— Her love is like a nakedness of noon: No flame but breathes in her the Spirit's calm And pours the omnipresence of a sun. Her tongues of fire break from a voiceless deep Dreaming the taste of some ineffable height— A cry to clasp the one God-hush in all, A universal hunger's white embrace That from the Unknown leaps burning to the Unknown. Sri Aurobindo's Comment "Exceedingly fine; both the language and rhythm are very powerful and highly inspired. When the inspiration is there, you reach more and more a peculiar fusion of the three influences, higher mental, illu

APE ON FIRE Fuelled with forests I come, an ape on fire, A brown beast burning towards the unbarred Blue, Fierce brain that feels suddenly the skull blown off, Blind belly crying to be an abysm of stars! Helpless with flame that snatches them from earth, My terrible arms strain reddening in mid-air— Love that has lost the ecstasy it can grasp, To embrace the bourneless body of the beyond. Sri Aurobindo's Comment "The lines you have sent me no doubt have a remarkable force, especially three or four of them, but I do not know that I can say positively from what level or source they come. Perhaps the Illumined Mind but not pur

GREAT MOTHER Great Mother, grant me this one boon I crave: I will forgo all triumphs of the mind And grandiose honours for which men have pined If in its search for Thee my life be brave. Beyond earth's crowded hours of brief delight, Of passionate anarchy whose eyes are blind, Let me on feet of calm devotion find The lonely soul's sweet contemplative height. And from the crest of that serenity Whence Thy far infinite face can be divined, An endless song let all my ardour be To reach Thy beauty, leaving lust behind — No stern forced worship but love self-consigned, A river's leap towards the pristine sea. Sri

THANK GOD... Thank God for all this wretchedness of love— The close apocalypt fires that only prove The shutting of some golden gate in the face! Not here beside us burning a brief space Of life is ecstasy: immense, above, The shining core of a divine abyss Awaits the earth-unglamoured lonely gaze, The tense heart broken into widenesses! All quiver and cry of time is splendoured there By an ageless alchemy smiling everywhere. Sri Aurobindo's Comment "Perfect in thought and expression. 'The tense heart broken into widenesses' is a very fine line. (I suppose 'alchemy' can smile— usually it doesn't.)" Nir

FROM BEATRICE IN HEAVEN Each time your eyes of longing rose above All transient colour to the Invisible, Their viewless worship mingled with my love. So, like the sun upon a blinded gaze You found a warmth of secret splendour spill And, though unvisioning, felt my rapturous face ... From these unshadowed paradisal tops No mortal beauty throws its narrow ray But only a lustre of immensity drops! Death leaves me here a timeless self behind— A dream unvestured of both night and day— Truth-glory naked in the Immortal Mind— An image sprung from God's untarnished core Of mystery beyond the clasp of

ABOVE ALL ROSES Giant roses, Gods of light, Glory and laugh and mingle On a dreamy height. But, ever and ever Above rose-red Flame and forgetfulness, Vigilling unwed Is a white, immense, Miraculous-blown Lily beyond time's dearth Yet very alone. Omnipotence, Infinitude, Eternity of splendour— All are subdued To a virgin breath Calling the far Earth-glooms of pain to marry Its soul of star. And therefore life Yearns and yearns— Feeling some limitless rapture Unmated burns. Sri Aurobindo's Comment "Very fine. All such poems