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PART SEVEN: PONDICHERRY, CIRCA 1927 1947
Sri Aurobindo published three short volumes of poetry, and a volume on poetics that included poems as illustrations, between 1934and 1946. One of the volumes of poems, Poems Past and Present, comprises Part Six of the present volume. The other volumes are included in this part, which also contains complete and incomplete poems from his manuscripts of the same period.
Six Poems
These poems were written in 1932, 1933 and 1934. In 1934 a book was planned that would include the six poems along with translations of them into Bengali by disciples of Sri Aurobindo. This book was published by Rameshwar & Co., Chandernagore, before the end of the year. Shown a proposed publicity blurb for the book, Sri Aurobindo wrote: “One can’t blow one’s own trumpet in this monstrous way, nor do I want it to be indicated that I am publishing this book. It is Nolini’s publication, not mine. Why can’t a decent notice be given instead of these terrible blurbs?” He also wrote his own descriptive paragraph stating that the six poems were in “novel English metres” and that the book included “notes on the metres of the poems and their significance drawn from the letters of Sri Aurobindo”. The texts as well as the notes were reprinted in Collected Poems and Plays (1942).
The Bird of Fire. 17 October 1933. No handwritten manuscripts of this poem survive. There are three typed manuscripts, two of which are dated 17 October 1933. In a letter written shortly afterwards, Sri Aurobindo said that “Bird of Fire” was “written on two consecutive days — and afterwards revised”. He also wrote that this poem and "Trance” (see below) were completed the same day.2 Trance. 16 October 1933. There are two handwritten manuscripts and one typed manuscript, which is dated “16.10.33″. In the same letter in which Sri Aurobindo wrote about the composition of “The Bird of Fire” (see above), he noted that “Trance” was written “at one sitting
2 Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Poetry and Art, volume 27 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO, p. 244.
Page – 712 — it took only a few minutes”. In Six Poems “Trance” was placed after “The Bird of Fire”. Shiva. 6 November 1933. There are two handwritten manuscripts and one typed manuscript, which is dated “6.11.33″. The Life Heavens. 15 November 1933. There are four handwritten and three typed manuscripts. The typed manuscripts are dated “15.11.33″.Jivanmukta. 13 April 1934. There are four handwritten and two typed manuscripts. The typed manuscripts are dated “13.4.34″. The poem was published in the Calcutta Review in June 1934. In Horis Aeternum. 19 April 1932. Sri Aurobindo began this poem while corresponding with Arjava (J. A. Chadwick, a British disciple) about English prosody. He wrote the first stanza in a letter to Arjava and the full poem in a subsequent letter (Letters on Poetry and Art, pp. 231 34). There are two handwritten and two typed manuscripts. One of the typed manuscripts is dated “19.4.32″. Notes. These notes were compiled from Sri Aurobindo’s letters and revised by him for publication while Six Poems was under production.
Poems
These six poems were written during the early 1930s and published as a booklet by the Government Central Press, Hyderabad, in 1941. The next year they were reprinted in Collected Poems and Plays under the heading “Transformation and Other Poems”. Sometime in the 1940sa small edition of the book was published by the India Library Society, New York.
Transformation. Circa 1933. This sonnet was published in the Calcutta Review in October 1934. Two months earlier, Sri Aurobindo asked his secretary to type copies of this poem and three others (“The Other Earths”, “The World Game” and “Symbol Moon”) from the notebook in which they and others had been written. When “Transformation" and “The Other Earths” were published in 1934, Sri Aurobindo in-formed a disciple that they were “some years old already” (Letters on Poetry and Art, p. 211), but it is unlikely that they were more than a year old at that time. The first draft of “Transformation” occurs in a notebook just after the first draft of “Trance”, which is dated 16
Page – 713 October 1933; it is probable that “Transformation” was written the same year. There are two handwritten and two typed manuscripts of this poem. In a note written after “Transformation” and the next two sonnets were typed for publication, Sri Aurobindo said that he wanted the sestets of Miltonic sonnets to be set as they have been set in the present book, irrespective of rhyme scheme. Nirvana. August 1934. This sonnet was written while the texts of "Transformation” and “The Other Earths” were being prepared for publication in the Calcutta Review. It was published along with them in that journal in October 1934. There are two handwritten manuscripts and one typed manuscript of this poem. The Other Earths. Circa 1933. This sonnet was published in the Calcutta Review in October 1934. Its first draft occurs just after the first draft of “Transformation”, which is dated 16 October 1933; thus it belongs, in all probability, to the year 1933. See the note to “Trans-formation” for more details. Writing to a disciple who was trying to translate it into Bengali, Sri Aurobindo wrote that the line “Fire importunities of scarlet bloom” meant “an abundance of scarlet blossoms importuning (constantly insisting, besieging) with the fire of their vivid hues”. There are two handwritten and two typed manuscripts of this poem. Thought the Paraclete. 31 December 1934 (this is the date on a typed manuscript; the handwritten manuscripts were probably written in June 1934). This poem originated as a metrical experiment, in which Sri Aurobindo tried to match a Bengali metrical model submitted to him by his disciple Dilip Kumar Roy.3 There are at least three hand-written and two typed manuscripts of this poem. A printed text was produced sometime before 1941, but apparently was never published. Moon of Two Hemispheres. July 1934. Like “Thought the Paraclete", this poem originated in an attempt to duplicate a Bengali metre pro-posed by Dilip Kumar Roy. Replying to Dilip, Sri Aurobindo began: "After two days of wrestling I have to admit that I am beaten by your last metre. I have written something, but it is a fake.” He then wrote out the first stanza of the poem, pointing out where he had
3 Dilip Kumar Roy, Sri Aurobindo Came to Me (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram,1952), p. 237.
Page – 6 failed to meet Dilip’s specifications. He closed by saying: “I have some idea of adding a second stanza”, though “it may never take birth at all” (Letters on Poetry and Art, pp. 235 36). He did write a second stanza later. The poem was published in the “Sri Aurobindo Number" (volume 2, number 5) of the Calcutta fortnightly journal Onward in August 1934. There are four handwritten and two typed manuscripts of this poem. Rose of God. 29 30 December 1934. There is one handwritten and one typed manuscript of this poem. The typed manuscript is dated 31December 1934; however Sri Aurobindo wrote in a letter to a disciple that “Rose of God” was ready “on the 30th having been written on that and the previous day”. On 31 December, he wrote to his secretary that the just-typed “Rose of God” could be “circulated first as a sort of New Year invocation”. On 2 March 1935, his secretary wrote to him saying that the editor of a quarterly journal had asked for a poem to be published, and asking whether “Rose of God” could be sent. Sri Aurobindo replied: “I feel squeamish about publishing the Rose of God’ in a magazine or newspaper. It seems to me the wrong place altogether.” Note. This note did not form part of Poems (1941); it was first published in 1942 in Collected Poems and Plays.
Poems Published in On Quantitative Metre
With two exceptions, these poems were written in 1942 for publication in Collected Poems and Plays. Sri Aurobindo later commented that he wrote them “very rapidly — in the course of a week, I think”. In regard to “Flame-Wind” and “Trance of Waiting”, this would refer not to the composition but the revision, since the first drafts of these pieces were written during the mid 1930s. The fourteen poems, along with the first371 lines of Ilion, first appeared as an appendix to On Quantitative Metre. This text was published as part of Collected Poems and Plays, and also as a separate book, in 1942. Each of the poems was followed by a footnote written by the author giving details of the metre used. These notes have not been included in the present volume, but maybe seen in the text of On Quantitative Metre, published in The Future Poetry with On Quantitative Metre, volume 26 of THE COMPLETE
Page – 715 WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO. The first 371 lines of Ilion appear in Part Five of the present volume as part of the full text of the poem. Ocean Oneness. 1942. Two handwritten manuscripts, both entitled "Brahman”, precede the On Quantitative Metre revision work. Trance of Waiting. Circa 1934. The first draft of this poem was written around the same time as “Jivanmukta”, which is dated 1934. Two handwritten manuscripts precede the On Quantitative Metre revision work in 1942. Flame-Wind. 1937. A handwritten draft of this poem is dated 1937.This draft is entitled “Dream Symbols”. Three other handwritten manuscripts precede the On Quantitative Metre revision work in 1942.The River. 1942. Three handwritten manuscripts precede the On Quantitative Metre revision work. Journey’s End. 1942. Two handwritten manuscripts precede the On Quantitative Metre revision work. The Dream Boat. 1942. A single handwritten manuscript precedes the On Quantitative Metre revision work. Soul in the Ignorance. 1942. A single handwritten manuscript precedes the On Quantitative Metre revision work. The Witness and the Wheel. 1942. A single handwritten manuscript precedes the On Quantitative Metre revision work. Descent. 1942. A single handwritten manuscript precedes the On Quantitative Metre revision work. The Lost Boat. 1942. Two handwritten manuscripts precede the On Quantitative Metre revision work. Renewal. 1942. A single handwritten manuscript precedes the On Quantitative Metre revision work. Soul’s Scene. 1942. Three handwritten manuscripts precede the On Quantitative Metre revision work. Ascent. 1942. Two handwritten manuscripts precede the On Quantitative Metre revision work. The Tiger and the Deer. 1942. A single handwritten manuscript pre-cedes the On Quantitative Metre revision work.
Page – 716 Sonnets
Sri Aurobindo wrote a total of seventy-five sonnets between 1933 and1947. Only three of them were published in a book during his lifetime (see above under Poems). The other seventy-two are reproduced in the present section. See the note to “Transformation” for typographical conventions. Sri Aurobindo wrote in 1934 that he intended his sonnets to "be published in a separate book of sonnets". This was done in the book Sonnets, first published in 1980.
Three Sonnets
One of these sonnets was written around 1934, the other two in 1939.Sri Aurobindo selected them from among his completed sonnets for publication in the Sri Aurobindo Circle, Bombay, in 1948. They were published under the heading “Three Sonnets”.
Man the Enigma. 17 September 1939. Three handwritten and two typed manuscripts precede the Circle publication in 1948. The Infinitesimal Infinite. Circa 1934. Three handwritten and four typed manuscripts precede the Circle publication in 1948. The Cosmic Dance. 15 September 1939. Four handwritten and two typed manuscripts precede the Circle publication in 1948.
Sonnets from Manuscripts, circa 1934 1947
On 31 December 1934, Nolini Kanta Gupta wrote in a note to Sri Aurobindo: “Sometime ago I typed Seven Sonnets — Are they not in their final form?” Sri Aurobindo replied: “No. I have had no time to see them — and I am still a little doubtful about their quality.” The seven sonnets were (in the order of Nolini’s typed copies): “Contrasts", "Man the Thinking Animal”, “Evolution [1]“, “Evolution [2]“, “The Call of the Impossible”, “Man the Mediator”, and “The Infinitesimal Infinite”. Sri Aurobindo later revised most of the seven, along with an eighth, “The Silver Call”, which is related to “The Infinitesimal Infinite”. After further revision he published “The Infinitesimal Infinite" as part of “Three Sonnets” in 1948 (see above).
Page – 717 Man the Thinking Animal. Circa 1934. Five handwritten manuscripts and one typed manuscript, the earliest contemporaneous with close-to-final drafts of “Transformation” and “The Other Earths”. Contrasts. Circa 1934. Five handwritten manuscripts and one typed manuscript, the earliest contemporaneous with close-to-final drafts of "Transformation” and “The Other Earths”. The Silver Call. Written on or before 25 April 1934 (when Sri Aurobindo quoted five lines in a letter to Dilip Kumar Roy); revised 1944.Five handwritten manuscripts and one typed manuscript; the first handwritten manuscript was written shortly after those of the two preceding sonnets. The original poem went through several versions, eventually becoming two, “The Silver Call” and “The Call of the Impossible”. The final version of “The Silver Call” is dated “193 (?)/ 23.3.44″. Evolution [1]. Circa 1934, revised 1944. Five handwritten manuscripts and one typed manuscript, that is dated “193 (?) / 22.3.44″. This poem and the one above were often worked on together, as were the two that follow. The Call of the Impossible. 1934; revised subsequently. Four hand-written manuscripts and one typed manuscript. This poem began as a variant of “The Silver Call”: the first lines of the two poems were once identical — “There is a godhead in unrealised things” — and the first rhyming words remain the same even in the final versions. Evolution [2]. Circa 1934. Two handwritten manuscripts and one typed manuscript. The handwritten drafts were written around the same time as early drafts of “The Call of the Impossible”; the final typed versions of the two poems are also contemporaneous. The present sonnet has the same title as the one which forms a pair with "A Silver Call” (see “Evolution [1]” above). There is no textual relation between it and its namesake, but there is some between it and “The Silver Call”: its closing couplet was first used as the close of “The Silver Call” and its second and fourth lines are similar to the tenth and twelfth lines of “The Silver Call”. Man the Mediator. Circa 1934. Four handwritten manuscripts and one typed manuscript.
Sri Aurobindo wrote the next five sonnets in 1934 or 1935, at around
Page – 718 the same time. He did not ask his secretary to make typed copies of any of the five, and gave titles to only three of them. The other two (one of which began as a variant of one of the first three) were found recently among the manuscripts of this group and recognised as separate poems.
Discoveries of Science. Circa 1934 35. Three handwritten manu-scripts. All here is Spirit. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1934 35. One handwritten manuscript. Published here for the first time. The Ways of the Spirit [1]. Circa 1934 35. Four handwritten manu-scripts. The Ways of the Spirit [2]. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1934 35.Three handwritten manuscripts. Science and the Unknowable. Circa 1934 35. Three handwritten manuscripts.
Sri Aurobindo wrote the next two sonnets in the early part of 1936.
The Yogi on the Whirlpool. 1936. Two handwritten manuscripts, neither of them dated, but certainly written just before “The Kingdom Within”. The Kingdom Within. 14 March 1936. Two handwritten manuscripts.
Sri Aurobindo wrote the next three sonnets in the early part of 1938.
Now I have borne. No title in the manuscript. 2 February 1938. Two handwritten manuscripts. Electron. 15 July 1938. Two handwritten manuscripts. The Indwelling Universal. 15 July 1938. Two handwritten manu-scripts.
Sri Aurobindo wrote the next nine sonnets in July and August 1938and revised them in March 1944.
Bliss of Identity. 25 July 1938, revised 21 March 1944. Two handwritten manuscripts, the first entitled “Identity”. The Witness Spirit. 26 July 1938, revised 21 March 1944. Two hand-written manuscripts. The Hidden Plan. 26 July 1938, revised 18 and 21 March 1944. Two720
Page – 719 handwritten manuscripts. The Pilgrim of the Night. 26 July 1938, revised 18 March 1944. Three handwritten manuscripts, the first entitled “In the Night”. Cosmic Consciousness. 26 July 1938, revised apparently on 21 March1944. Two handwritten manuscripts, the first entitled “The Cosmic Man”. Liberation [1]. 27 July 1938, revised 22 March 1944. Two handwritten manuscripts. The Inconscient. 27 July 1938, revised 21 March 1944. Two hand-written manuscripts. Life-Unity. 8 August 1938, revised 22 March 1944. Two handwritten manuscripts. The Golden Light. 8 August 1938, revised 22 March 1944. Two handwritten manuscripts.
Sri Aurobindo wrote the next thirty-nine sonnets between 11 September and 16 November 1939. He wrote two other sonnets, “Man the Enigma” and “The Cosmic Dance” during the same period (see above under “Three Sonnets”).
The Infinite Adventure. 11 September 1939. Three handwritten manu-scripts. The Greater Plan. 12 September 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. The Universal Incarnation. 13 September 1939. Four handwritten manuscripts. The Godhead. 13 September 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. This sonnet is about an experience Sri Aurobindo had during the first year of his stay in Baroda (1893). The Stone Goddess. 13 September 1939. Three handwritten manu-scripts. This sonnet is about an experience Sri Aurobindo had at a temple in Karnali, on the banks of the Narmada, near the end of his stay in Baroda (c. 1904 6). Krishna. 15 September 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. Shiva. 16 September 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. The Word of the Silence. 18 19 September 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. The Self’s Infinity. 18 19 September 1939. Three handwritten manu-scripts, the second entitled “Self-Infinity”.
Page – 720 The Dual Being. 19 September 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. Lila. 20 September 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts, the second entitled “The Thousandfold One”. Surrender. 20 September 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. The Divine Worker. 20 September 1939. Three handwritten manu-scripts. The Guest. 21 September 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts, the first entitled “The Guest of Nature”. The Inner Sovereign. 22 September 1939, revised 27 September. Three handwritten manuscripts, the first entitled “The Sovereign Tenant”. Creation. 24 September 1939, revised 28 September. Three handwritten manuscripts, the first entitled “The Conscious Inconscient”. A Dream of Surreal Science. 25 September 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. In the Battle. 25 September 1939. Two handwritten manuscripts. The Little Ego. 26 September 1939, revised 29 September. Two hand-written manuscripts. The Miracle of Birth. 27 September 1939, revised 29 September. Six handwritten manuscripts, the second entitled “The Divine Mystery", the third “The Divine Miracle-Play”, and the fourth and fifth “The Miracle-Play”. The Bliss of Brahman. 29 September 1939, revised 21 October. Five handwritten manuscripts; the first has the epigraph: “He who has found the bliss of Brahman, has no fear from any quarter. / Upanishad [Taittiriya Upanishad 2.4]“. Moments. 29 September 1939, revised 2 October. Two handwritten manuscripts. The Body. 2 October 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. Liberation [2]. 2 3 October 1939, revised 5 November. Three hand-written manuscripts. Light. 3 4 October 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. The Unseen Infinite. 4 October 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts, the first entitled “The Omnipresent”. “I”. 15 October 1939, revised 5 November. Two handwritten manu-scripts. The Cosmic Spirit. 15 October 1939, revised 5 November. Two hand-written manuscripts, the first entitled “Cosmic Consciousness”, revised722
Page – 721 to “Cosmic Self”. Self. 15 October 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts, the first entitled “Liberty”. Omnipresence. 17 October 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts, the first two entitled “The Omnipresent”. The Inconscient Foundation. 18 October 1939, revised 7 February1940. Two handwritten manuscripts. Adwaita. 19 October 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. This son-net was written about an experience Sri Aurobindo had while walking on the Takht-i-Sulaiman (“Seat of Solomon”), near Srinagar, Kashmir, in 1903. The Hill-top Temple. 21 October 1939. Three handwritten manu-scripts, the first two entitled “The Temple on the Hill-Top”. This sonnet is about an experience Sri Aurobindo had at a shrine in the temple-complex on Parvati Hill, near Poona, probably in 1902. The Divine Hearing. 24 October 1939. Three handwritten manu-scripts, one of which is entitled “Sounds”. Because Thou art. 25 October 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts, all untitled. Divine Sight. 26 October 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. Divine Sense. 1 November 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. The Iron Dictators. 14 November 1939. Two handwritten manu-scripts. Form. 16 November 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts.
Sri Aurobindo wrote the next two sonnets in 1940.
Immortality. 8 February 1940. One handwritten manuscript. Man, the Despot of Contraries. 29 July 1940. Two handwritten manu-scripts, the first entitled “The Spirit of Man”.
Sri Aurobindo wrote the next two sonnets during the middle to late1940s.
The One Self. Circa 1945 47. One handwritten manuscript, undated, but in the almost illegible handwriting of the late 1940s. The Inner Fields. 14 March 1947. One handwritten manuscript, legible only with difficulty, and another in the handwriting of Nirodbaran, Sri Aurobindo’s scribe.
Page – 722 Lyrical Poems from Manuscripts, circa 1934 1947Sri Aurobindo once wrote that he wanted his short poems published in two separate books, one of sonnets and one of “(mainly) lyrical poems”. In the present section are published all complete short poems, sonnets excluded, that he wrote between 1934 and 1947. Parodies written as amusements, poems written primarily as metrical experiments, and incomplete poems have been placed in the sections that follow. It sometimes is difficult to determine whether Sri Aurobindo considered a given poem to be complete when he stopped work on it. Symbol Moon. Circa 1934. Three handwritten and two typed manu-scripts. On 7 August 1934, Sri Aurobindo asked his secretary to type the first drafts of “Symbol Moon”, “The World Game”, “Transformation” and “The Other Earths” from the notebook in which he wrote these and other poems. The World Game. Circa 1934. Three handwritten and two typed manuscripts. Who art thou that camest. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1934 36.One handwritten manuscript, written in a notebook used otherwise for Savitri. One. 14 March 1936. One handwritten manuscript, written on a sheet of a small “Bloc-Memo” pad. In a mounting as of sea-tides. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1936 37. One handwritten manuscript. Krishna. Circa 1936 37. One handwritten manuscript. The Cosmic Man. 15 September 1938. One handwritten manuscript. The Island Sun. 13 October 1939. Three handwritten manuscripts. Despair on the Staircase. October 1939. Three handwritten manu-scripts. The Dwarf Napoleon. 16 October 1939. Three handwritten manu-scripts. The Children of Wotan. 30 August 1940. Two handwritten manu-scripts. The Mother of God. One handwritten manuscript, undated, but in the handwriting of the mid 1940s. The End? 3 June 1945. One handwritten manuscript.
Page – 723 Silence is all. No title in the manuscript. 14 January 1947. (The manu-script is dated “January 14, 1946″, but this is probably a slip, as the rest of the contents of the notebook in which the poem is written are from 1947.) One handwritten manuscript.
Poems Written as Metrical Experiments
Sri Aurobindo wrote most of these pieces in a somewhat playful effort to match metrical models submitted to him by his disciple Dilip Kumar Roy. As Dilip writes in Sri Aurobindo Came to Me, p. 233: “At the time I was transposing some English modulations into our Bengali verse which he [Sri Aurobindo] greatly appreciated in so much that, to encourage me, he composed short poems now and then as English counterparts to my Bengali bases.” One such experiment resulted in the poem “Thought the Paraclete”, which Sri Aurobindo later revised and included in the book Poems (see above). All but one of the others existing one or more drafts in Sri Aurobindo’s notebooks of the period. The exception, “In some faint dawn”, is known only by the text published by Dilip in Sri Aurobindo Came to Me. The nine poems published in that book are reproduced here in the same order. Another poem written in response to a letter from Dilip is placed before the rest, while two others, also metrical experiments, have been placed at the end of Dilip’s set. All the poems except the last seem to have been written in 1934. All but one are untitled in the manuscripts.
O pall of black Night. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1934. Three handwritten manuscripts. See Letters on Poetry and Art, pp. 236 37,for a letter that shows the genesis of this poem. To the hill-tops of silence. No title in the manuscript. 1934. One handwritten transcript in Nolini Kanta Gupta’s hand. Oh, but fair was her face. No title in the manuscript. 1934. One handwritten transcript in Nolini Kanta Gupta’s hand. In the ending of time. No title in the manuscript. 1934. One handwritten transcript in Nolini Kanta Gupta’s hand. In some faint dawn. No title in the printed text in Sri Aurobindo Came to Me. 1934. In a flaming as of spaces. No title in the manuscript. 1934. One
Page – 724 handwritten manuscript. O Life, thy breath is but a cry. 1934. Early typed copies of this poem are dated 21 June 1934 and are entitled “Life and the Immortal". Sri Aurobindo took up this poem in 1942 while preparing poems to be published in On Quantitative Metre. He gave the revised draft the title “Life” and indicated the rhyme scheme as follows: “Iambics; modulations, spondee, anapaest, pyrrhic, long monosyllable”. Eventually, however, he decided not to include the revised poem in On Quantitative Metre. The editors have incorporated his final revisions in the text, but used the first line as title as with the other poems in this subsection. Two handwritten manuscripts. Vast-winged the wind ran. No title in Sri Aurobindo Came to Me.1934. No manuscripts. An early typed copy of this piece is dated 25June 1934. Note that in Sri Aurobindo Came to Me this piece and the two that follow are placed after the mention of “Thought the Paraclete”. Winged with dangerous deity. No title in the manuscript. 20 June 1934.See Letters on Poetry and Art, pp. 234 35 for a letter that shows the genesis of this poem. Two handwritten and two typed manuscripts. Outspread a Wave burst. No title in the manuscript. 26 June 1934.Two handwritten manuscripts, one in Nolini Kanta Gupta’s hand. On the grey street. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1934. One hand-written manuscript. Cry of the ocean’s surges. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1940 41.One handwritten manuscript.
Nonsense and “Surrealist” Verse
Sri Aurobindo wrote the first of these poems in isolation during the late1920s or early 1930s. He wrote the other items as an amusement after some of his disciples tried to interest him in the subject of surrealistic poetry. See also the more serious sonnet “A Dream of Surreal Science" in the section “Lyrical Poems”.
A Ballad of Doom. Late 1920s or early 1930s. There is one hand-written manuscript of this piece, the writing of which has completely faded away. A transcription made years ago was published in the
Page – 725 journal Mother India in April 1974. The editors have verified and corrected this transcription using images made by means of infrared photography, scanning and imaging software. Several words in the text remain somewhat doubtful. Surrealist. Circa 1936. One handwritten manuscript, written before28 December 1936, when Sri Aurobindo mentioned it in a letter to a disciple. Surrealist Poems. Circa 1943. (The Moro River, mentioned in the second poem, is a river in Italy that was the site of a battle between Canadian and German forces in December 1943; the notebook in which the poem is written was in use during the early 1940s.) One handwritten manuscript, consisting of two pages of a “Bloc-Memo" pad. Sri Aurobindo first wrote, in the upper left hand corner, “Parody", then, as title, “Surrealist Poems”. Beneath the first poem, he wrote a tongue-in-cheek explanation within his own square brackets, then, after “2″, the title and text of the second poem.
Incomplete Poems from Manuscripts, circa 1927 1947
Thou art myself. No title in the manuscript. 1927 29. One handwritten manuscript, jotted down in a notebook used otherwise for diary entries, essays, etc. In the manuscript, the word “Or”, presumably the beginning of an unwritten second stanza, comes after the fourth line. Vain, they have said. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1927. Although written, like “Ahana”, in rhymed dactylic hexameter couplets, these lines do not seem to have been intended for inclusion in that poem. (The phrase “to infinity calling” does occur both here and in “The Descent of Ahana”, but in different contexts.) One handwritten manuscript. Pururavus. Circa 1933. Several handwritten drafts in a single note-book. It would appear from the manuscript that Sri Aurobindo began this passage as a proposed revision to the opening of the narrative poem “Urvasie”. The passage developed on different lines, however, and Sri Aurobindo soon stopped work on it. The Death of a God [1]. Circa 1933. Two handwritten manuscripts; a third manuscript is published as “The Death of a God [2]“. The Death of a God [2]. Circa 1933. One handwritten manuscript. The Inconscient and the Traveller Fire. Circa 1934. Two handwritten
Page – 726 manuscripts, the first entitled “Death and the Traveller Fire”. I walked beside the waters. No title in the manuscript. April 1934. Sri Aurobindo wrote the first part of this poem (down to “gloried fields of trance”) on 25 April 1934 after Dilip Kumar Roy asked him for some lines in alexandrines (Sri Aurobindo Came to Me, pp. 226 29).In an accompanying letter, he explained how the caesura dividing the lines into two parts could come after different syllables. Dilip, noting that in Sri Aurobindo’s passage there were examples of the caesura falling after the second, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth syllables, asked for an example of a line with the caesura coming after the third syllable. Sri Aurobindo obliged by sending him the couplet:
And in the silence of the mind life knows itself Immortal, and immaculately grows divine.
On 28 April 1934, three days after Sri Aurobindo sent the first passage, his secretary asked him: “Can your last poem (in Alexandrines, sent to Dilip) be put into circulation?” Sri Aurobindo replied: “No. It is not even half finished.” He wrote two more passages but never wove the three together into a completed poem. The editors have reproduced the passages as they are found in Sri Aurobindo’s notebooks and loose sheets, separating the three passages by blank lines. A strong son of lightning. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1934. Three handwritten manuscripts. I made danger my helper. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1934.Two handwritten manuscripts. Sri Aurobindo wrote these four lines on the back of a typed manuscript of “The World Game”. They do not, however, appear to have been intended for inclusion in that poem. The metre is not the same as, though possibly related to, the metre of "The World Game”. The Inconscient. Circa 1934. Four handwritten manuscripts. In gleam Konarak. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1934 35. A single handwritten manuscript on the back of a sheet used for a draft of “Thought the Paraclete”, which is dated 31 December 1934. The fragment consists of three stanzas, the second of which is incomplete. Bugles of Light. Circa 1934 35. A single handwritten manuscript on the back of a note written to Sri Aurobindo on 31 December 1934.
Page – 727 The Fire King and the Messenger. Circa 1934 35. A single manu-script, written in a notebook near a draft of “Thought the Paraclete". God to thy greatness. No title in the manuscript. March 1936. A single manuscript, written between drafts of “The Yogi on the Whirlpool" and “The Kingdom Within”, both of which are dated 14 March 1936.Silver foam. No title in the manuscript. March 1936. One handwritten manuscript, written on a sheet of a “Bloc-Memo” pad between “The Kingdom Within” and “One”, both of which are dated 14 March1936. In the manuscript, there is no full stop at the end, suggesting that the piece is incomplete. Torn are the walls. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1936. Two handwritten manuscripts. O ye Powers. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1936. Three hand-written manuscripts. In the final manuscript, the last line ends in a comma, indicating that the piece is incomplete. Hail to the fallen. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1936. Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in October 1935. Britain and France stopped trying to broker a peace in December, and in May 1936, after a heroic resistance, Emperor Haile Selassie fled the country. “Lion of Judah" was a title borne by the Emperors of Ethiopia. The star towards the end was written by Sri Aurobindo. One handwritten manuscript. Seer deep-hearted. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1936 37. One handwritten manuscript. Soul, my soul [1]. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1936 37. Two handwritten manuscripts; a third is published as “Soul, my soul [2]“. Soul, my soul [2]. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1936 37. This is the most completely revised, but shortest, manuscript of this poem. I am filled with the crash of war. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1938.Compare the third and fourth line of this poem with the third line of "The Cosmic Man” (see above); the two poems seem to be related. "The Cosmic Man” is dated 15 September 1938. One handwritten manuscript. In the silence of the midnight. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1938.One handwritten manuscript. Here in the green of the forest. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1939.One handwritten manuscript. The star before the last four lines was written by Sri Aurobindo.
Page – 728 Voice of the Summits. Circa 1946 47. One handwritten manuscript. The poem was probably written after “The Inner Fields”, which is dated 14 March 1947.
APPENDIX: POEMS IN GREEK AND IN FRENCH
As a student in England Sri Aurobindo wrote many poems in Greek and in Latin as school or college assignments. A typical assignment would be to render an English poem into Greek or Latin verse of a given metre. The Greek epigram below appears to be an example of such an assignment. Sri Aurobindo also learned French in England, and in later years wrote two poems in that language.
Greek Epigram. January 1892. Sri Aurobindo wrote this epigram in a notebook he used at Cambridge. At the end he wrote “Jan. 1892 (Porson Schol)”. This refers to the Porson Scholarship examination, which was held at Cambridge that month. In order to win this scholarship, candidates had to take twelve papers over the course of a week. One of the papers required contestants to provide a Greek translation of the following poem by Richard Carlton (born circa 1558), an English madrigal composer:
The witless boy that blind is to behold Yet blinded sees what in our fancy lies With smiling looks and hairs of curled gold Hath oft entrapped and oft deceived the wise. No wit can serve his fancy to remove, For finest wits are soonest thralled to love.
Sir Edmund Leach, late provost of King’s College, Cambridge, who provided the information on the scholarship examination, went on to add:
It is possible that [Sri Aurobindo] Ghose was a candidate for the Porson Scholarship; alternatively it is possible that his King’s College supervisor set him the Porson Scholarship paper as an exercise to provide practice for the Classical Tripos examination which he was due to take in June 1892.
Page – 729 Sri Aurobindo’s epigram is not a literal translation of the English poem, but an adaptation of it in Greek verse. Transliterated into the Latin alphabet, the Greek text reads as follows:
Mōros Erōs alaos th’; ho d’homōs ha g’eni phresi keitai Hēmōn, ophthalmous ōn alaos kathora. Pai, su gar hēdu gelōn iobostrukhe kalliprosōpe, Diktuō andra kalō kai sophon exapatas. Oude sophos per anēr se, doloploke, phuximos oudeis; Kai proteros pantōn doulos erōti sophos.
Lorsque rien n’existait. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1914 20. Sri Aurobindo seems to have written this prose poem during a fairly early period of his stay in Pondicherry. Published here for the first time. Sur les grands sommets blancs. No title in the manuscript. Circa 1927.Sri Aurobindo wrote this incomplete poem in a notebook he used otherwise for the Record of Yoga of 1927.
PUBLICATION HISTORY
During his lifetime, Sri Aurobindo published poetry in a number of periodicals: Fox’s Weekly (1883), Bande Mataram (1907), The Modern Review (1909, 1910), Karmayogin (1909, 1910), Shama’a (1921),The Calcutta Review (1934), Sri Aurobindo Circle (1948, 1949), and others. He also published poetry in twelve books: Songs to Myrtilla and Other Poems (c. 1898), Urvasie (c. 1899), Ahana and Other Poems (1915), Love and Death (1921), Baji Prabhou (1922), Six Poems(1934), Poems (1941), Collected Poems and Plays (1942), On Quantitative Metre (1942), Poems Past and Present (1946), Chitrangada(1949) and Savitri (1950 51). Details on the first editions of all these books except the last two may be found in the above notes. Four of the books had further editions during Sri Aurobindo’s lifetime: Songs to Myrtilla (1923), Urvasie (c. 1905), Love and Death (1924, 1948),and Baji Prabhou (1949). Collected Poems and Plays was the first attempt to bring out a comprehensive edition of Sri Aurobindo’s known poetic output. It was planned by Nolini Kanta Gupta for release on 15 August 1942, Sri
Page – 730 Aurobindo’s seventieth birthday. Following Sri Aurobindo’s instructions that “only poems already published should be included in this collection”, Nolini collected all poems, poetic translations and plays that had been published until then, typed them and sent them to Sri Aurobindo for revision. The book was published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, and printed at the Government Central Press, Hyderabad. Work on the book extended from around February to August 1942. Between 1950 and 1971 a number of poems that had remained unpublished at the time of Sri Aurobindo’s passing were printed in various journals connected with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and in three books: Last Poems (1952), More Poems (1957) and Ilion (1957).In 1971, all of Sri Aurobindo’s known poetical works were published in Collected Poems : The Complete Poetical Works, volume 5 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library. A few other poems were included in the Supplement (volume 27) to the Centenary Library in 1973.About a dozen poems discovered between then and 1985 were published in the journal Sri Aurobindo: Archives and Research. The first almost complete collection of Sri Aurobindo’s Sonnets was published in 1980. Lyrical Poems 1930 1950 came out in 2002. In the present volume are collected all previously published poems and at least three that appear here for the first time in print: “Thou bright choregus”, “All here is Spirit” and “Lorsque rien n’existait”.The poems have been arranged chronologically. As far as possible, books published during Sri Aurobindo’s lifetime have been presented in their original form. The texts of all the poems have been checked against the author’s manuscripts and printed editions.
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