PLEROMA Nor first nor last, but in a timeless gyre The globes of Beauty burn—a hush made fire: Their colours self-secluded one by one, Yet sisters in a joyful union— Rhythms of quiet, thrill on gemlike thrill Necklaced around a Throat invisible... When wearily I string word after word, I call your flame, O Ecstasies unheard, To guide my frailty with some touch of you! Grant me a worship-glow that reaches, through My dreamful silence ere the musics throng, Your deathless silence at each close of song. Sri Aurobindo's Comment "Very fine. It is a vision of things from the Illumined Mind with the atmosphe

WHITE HORSE White horse, white horse, Deathlessly wake.... Out of the cavern of our sleep Like laughter break Into the moon's pure flush And the stars' pale sheen! How can thy magic colour mate With grey or green, The grey of drowsing soil And the green of wood-gloom? Thy feet have wings: for thee was built Heaven's wide room. Soar through the silver deeps On a passion of prayer Until the lost dawn echoes thy love From its gold lair! Sri Aurobindo's Comment "Very good—a beautiful poem. Intuitive—intensely so." Page-79

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

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

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

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