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Resource name: /E-Library/Disciples/Amal Kiran (K D Sethna)/English/Overhead Poetry/A Metaphysical Poet to his Mistress.htm
A METAPHYSICAL POET TO HIS
MISTRESS
Not for the light of limbs
But for
the peace
Folding, when rapture dims,
Heart-poignancies—
The lull of ardour spent,
Which
like a wind
Of some cool firmament
Blows
out the mind,
Leaving our gaze a night
Timelessly deep
As if all heaven's height
Sank
asleep—
Page-108
O love, for that abyss'
Unnamable sky
The soul from kiss to kiss
Wings
on, a cry
Of passion to be freed
From
its own fire
And hurl away the seed
Of
earth-desire!...
Though far the eternal day
Pure
vigils view,
Its secret in my clay
Resource name: /E-Library/Disciples/Amal Kiran (K D Sethna)/English/Overhead Poetry/Truth-Vision.htm
TRUTH-VISION
How
shall you see
Through
a mist of tears
The laughing lips of beauty,
The golden heart of years?
Oh
never say
That
tears had birth
In the weeping soul of ages,
The gloomy brow of earth!
Your
eyes alone
Carry
the blame
For giving tearful answers
To questionings of flame.
What
drew that film
Across
your sight
Was only the great dazzle
Of everlasting Light!
Frailty
begot
Your
wounded gaze:
Eagle your mood, O spirit,
To see the Golden Face.
Sri Aurobindo's Comment
"It is exceedingly beautiful, one
of the best things you have done. But don't ask me t
PRAYER
There is no lack of love in Thee,
But, O sweet Splendour, bless
My proud heart with a penury
Of dedicated emptiness.
Thy blue and gold and silver light
Can never cease to drop,
For Thou hast generously made
All heaven a wide inverted cup.
'Tis we
are shut in outward self
Nor
deepen eyes to see
That
dawn and vesper, noon and night
Are
pouring Thy divinity.
Sri Aurobindo's Comment
"It is beautiful as well as
simple and very felicitous in its suggestiveness."
To judge from the turn of the
comment, one may guess the source of the lines to be jointly the psychic and the
inner mind.
Page-95
OJAS
Rise upward, stream of passion in the
gloom!
Rise where lone pinnacles mate with
heaven's womb!
Earth drags you down, but all your
shimmers know
The
stars' enchanted fire calling you home.
Mountains of mind are sacred: join
your cry
Unto their peaceful marriage
with the sky.
Your children shall be words eternal,
sprung
From
golden seeds of packed immensity.
Sri
Aurobindo's Comment
"It is a fine poem, the second
stanza especially fine. Language and rhythm from the illumined Mind."
"I can't exactly say that it is
equal to your best. It is a fine poem; but entire inevitability is not there,
except perhaps in the second
Resource name: /E-Library/Disciples/Amal Kiran (K D Sethna)/English/Overhead Poetry/First Sight of Girnar.htm
FIRST SIGHT OF GIRNAR
Strange with
half-hewn god-faces that upbear
A listening
quietude of giant caves,
The prisoner
eternities of earth
Have wakened in
this purple loneliness.
Each granite block comes cloven to the eye
As if the blue voice of the Unknowable
Broke through its sleep: like memories left behind
Of some enormous sculpture-cry of soul
The rocks reveal their shattered silences.
Sri Aurobindo's Comment
"A very fine poem—Illumined Mind
throughout very perfectly expressed."—"No, it is not the epic kind [of blank
verse]—the rhythm is rather large, calm and reflective than epic."1
"There i
ABSOLUTE
Lustre whose vanishing point we call
the sun—
Joy whose one drop drowns seas of all
desire—
Life rendering time's heart a hollow
hush—
Potence of poise unplumbed by infinite
space!
Not unto you I strain, O miracled
boons,
But that most inward marvel, the sheer
Self
Who bears your beauty; and, devoid of
you,
His dark unknown would yet fulfil my
love.
Sri Aurobindo's Comment
"No, they are not stiff: the
expression is successful and the rhythm harmonious. The first three lines are
magnificent."
Page-121
Resource name: /E-Library/Disciples/Amal Kiran (K D Sethna)/English/Overhead Poetry/Near and Far.htm
NEAR AND FAR
I see
your limbs aglow
With
passionate will,
But
touching their white flesh I know
Your
love's intangible—
As if
each fiery line
Of
yearning clay
Brought
only a mirror-shine
Of
beacons far away!
Your
flames unquenchable dart
Yet
burn not by their kiss:
They
flash around my heart
A dream
of distances—
A rich
wave-aureole
That
lures beyond its tune
Of time
the lustre-haunted soul
To a
paradisal moon.
Sri Aurobindo's Comment
"It is a very fine lyrical poem,
expressing with perfection what it had to say—it has the same quality as other
lyrics of the kind fo
TWO MOMENTS
Dark quietudes in a quiet gleam,
The branches woke with not a sough
The mere which made them water-souled,
Rapt from the rush of severing days.
One leaf forsook its hanging bough—
Fell through that agelessness of
dream.
A wrinkle crept on the water's face,
And all light suddenly grew old.
Sri Aurobindo's Comment
"Very subtle and suggestive."
*
A series of poems were written in
quick succession during three months in 1948, about which Sri Aurobindo wrote in
a letter:
"Your
new poems are very remarkable and original in their power of thought and
language and image. But precisely for that rea
APPEAL
My feet are sore, Beloved,
With
agelong quest for Thee;
Wilt Thou not choose for dwelling
This
lonesome heart of me?
Is it too poor a mansion?
But
surely it is poor
Because Thou never bringest
Thy
beauty through its door!
It lies all bare and darkened,
To hold
nought save Thy light:
The door is shut because, Love,
It
craves no lesser sight.
Though void, a fulness richens
The
heart I give to Thee—
For, what more can I offer
Than
all my penury?
(Anything special in this lyric? Is not the language too commonplace and the
rhythm too hackneyed?)
"I like it very well. A rhythm or
language
STORM-LIGHT
The
immortal music of her mind
Sweeps
through the earth a lustrous wind—
"Renounce, O man, thy arduous oar
And, opening out faith's song-charmed
helpless sail,
Reach on my breath of love the
ecstatic shore!
My rush is truth self-beaconed, not
thy pale
Stranger-surmise:
I am a
cyclic gale
That blows from paradise to paradise!"
Sri Aurobindo's Comment
"This is now quite perfect. Only,
the lines 2-5 are now of the Illumined Mind, with a strong undertone of the
effective,1 the first and last four intuitive. This is not a defect.
"The poetry of the Illumined Mind
is usually full of a play of lights