PUBLISHERS NOTE   The forty-eight poems included in this collection  consisting mainly of sonnets, are among the last written by the Master. He intended to give them all a final revision, but only a few were actually so done. One or two irregularities of rhyming may be noticed, but whether they were purposely meant to be like that or kept only provisionally, it is not possible to say. In several cases, where  it seemed necessary, earlier versions  have been drawn upon for textual collation and the fixing of dates. Where two dates are given for the same poem, the earlier refers to the date of composition  and the other to that of revision. The poems are arranged

Book SevenThe Book of Yoga Canto One The Joy of Union; The Ordeal of the Foreknowledge of Death and the Heart's Grief Fate followed her foreseen immutable road. Man's hopes and longings build the journeying wheels That bear the body of his destiny And lead his blind will towards an unknown goal. His fate within him shapes his acts and rules; Its face and form already are born in him, Its parentage is in his secret soul; Here Matter seems to mould the body's life And the soul follows where its nature drives: Nature and Fate compel his free-will's choice. But greater spirits this balance can reverse And ma

Letters on “Savitri” 1 There is a previous draft, the result of the many retouchings of which somebody told you; but in that form it would not have been a "magnum opus" at all. Besides, it would have been a legend and not a symbol. I therefore started recasting the whole thing; only the best passages and lines of the old draft will remain, altered so as to fit into the new frame. No, I do not work at the poem once a week; I have other things to do. Once a month perhaps, I look at the new form of the first book and make such changes as inspiration points out to me — so that nothing shall fall below the minimum height which I have fixed for it. —1931