Three letters from Amal to Narad on how to read Savitri.
Read slowly with an awareness that there is a metre, i.e. long syllables, short syllables and a combination of them. Metre means that there is a design, a pattern and the fact that the poetry is divided into lines means that each line has to be felt in a certain shape. So there must be a short pause after each line even if the sense of the line continues into the next.
Poetry means there is metre. Metre means a certain pattern of long syllables and short syllables. It also means that each line stands by itself with a certain pause whether long of brief.
Savitri is special in its meaning and message. It has a certain rhythm which is at the same time like all other poetry and with a subtle difference. And its special character makes it what Sri Aurobindo calls Overhead Poetry that is, poetry which comes from planes of consciousness above the mind. Sometimes the sense is dependent in a delicate way and with a subtle point on the way the line is read in tune with its distinctive character. An example:
A cry to clasp in all the one God-hush
Now mark the change which comes when the line is read as
A cry to clasp the on God-hush in all.
In the first example it is as if something is definitely said. But if one read the line as A cry to clasp on one God hush in all it is as if in the first version we have to discover the one God hush. In the other version, the one God hush seems a self evident truth and it is a truth which is not to be found but as if it were self-existent.
When we scan the two slightly different arranged lines we feel that in the first case a definite fact is stated. In the other case we feel that there is a subtle revelation beyond what is actually stated.
Amal Kiran
(K.D. Sethna)