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<FONT face="Times New Roman" size="4"><B>Mystic
Poetry</B></FONT></p>
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<FONT SIZE=3>I WOULD like to make a distinction between mystic poetry
and spiritual poetry. To equate mysticism and spirituality is not
always happy or even correct. Thus, when Tagore sings:</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>	Who comes along singing and steering his boat?</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>	It seems a face familiar.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>	He goes in full sail, turns nor right nor left;</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>	The waves break helplessly at the sides!</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>	His face looks familiar... <FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT></FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>it is mysticism, mysticism <I>in excelsis. </I>Even
A.E.'s</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>		I turn</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>	To Thee, invisible, unrumoured, still:</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>		White for Thy whiteness all desires burn.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>	Ah, with what longing once again I turn!<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT></FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>is just on the borderland: it has succeeded in leaving
behind the mystic domain, but has not yet entered the city of the
Spirit – at the most, it has turned the corner and approached the
gate. Listen now,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>	My soul unhorizoned widens to measureless sight,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>			My body is God's happy living tool,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>					My spirit a vast sun of deathless light.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup3;</FONT></FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>or the more occult yet luminously vibrant lines:</FONT></P>
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<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT>
&quot;The Golden Boat.&quot;</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;
</FONT>S A.E.: &quot;Desire.&quot;</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup3;</FONT>
Sri Aurobindo: &quot;Transformation.&quot;</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 64</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>He stood upon a threshold serpent-watched,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>And peered into gleaming endless corridors,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Silent and listening in the silent heart</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>For the coming of the new and the unknown.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>He gazed across the empty stillness</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>And heard the footsteps of the undreamed Idea</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>In the far avenues of the Beyond.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>He heard the secret Voice, the Word that knows,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>And saw the secret face that is our own.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT>...</FONT></P>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>Is
there not a fundamental difference, difference not merely with regard
to the poetic personality, but with regard to the very stuff of
consciousness? There is direct vision here, the fullness of light,
the native rhythm and substance of revelation, as if </FONT>
</P>
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</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>In the dead wall closing from a wider self,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Parting a door to things unseized by earth-sense,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>It lifted the heavy curtain of the flesh.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT>.
. .</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>When the Spirit speaks its own language in its own name,
we have spiritual poetry. If, however, the Spirit speaks – from
choice or necessity-an alien language and manner, e.g., that of a
profane consciousness, or of the consciousness of another domain,
idealistic or philosophical or even occult, puts on or imitates
spirit's language and manner, we have what we propose to call mystic
poetry proper. When Samain sings of the body of the dancer:</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3><I>Et Pannyre devient fleur, flamme, papillon! </I>...</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3><I>Comme au travers d'une eau soyeuse et continue;</I></FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3><I>Dans un divin <FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&eacute;</FONT>clair,
montre Pannyre nue.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup3;</FONT></I></FONT></P>
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</P>
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<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT>
Sri Aurobindo: <I>Savitri, </I>Book I, Canto III.</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT>
Ibid.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Later version:</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>In the dead wall closing us from wider self,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Into a secrecy of apparent sleep,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>The mystic tract beyond our waking thoughts,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>A door parted, built in by Matter's force,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Releasing things unseized by earthly sense:</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup3;</FONT>
Albert Samain: &quot;Pannyre awe talons d'or&quot;-Aux <I>Flancs du
Vase.</I></FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>And Pannyre became flower, flame, butterfly.. . .</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>As though through a silky continuity of water</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>In a divine flash showed Pannyre naked.</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 65</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>or
when Mallarm<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&eacute;</FONT> describes the
laurel flower:</FONT></P>
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</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3><I>Vermeil comme Ie pur orteil du s<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&eacute;</FONT>raphin</I></FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3><I>Que rougit la pudeur des aurores foul<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&eacute;</FONT>es,
<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT></I></FONT></P>
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</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>both
so idealise, etherealize, almost spiritualise the earth and the flesh
that they seem ostensibly only a vesture of something e1se behind,
something mysterious and other-worldly, something other than, even
just opposite to what they actually are or appear to be. That is the
mys<I>tique </I>of the senses which is a very characteristic feature
of some of the best poetic inspirations of France. Baudelaire too,
the Satanic poet, by the sheer intensity of sympathy and sincerity,
pierces as it were into the soul of things and makes the ugly, the
unclean, the diseased, the sordid throb and glow with an almost
celestial light. Here is the Baudelairean manner:</FONT></P>
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</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3><I>Tout cass<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&eacute;</FONT>s</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3><I>Qu'ils sont, its ant desyeux per<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&ccedil;</FONT>ants
comme une vrille,</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3><I>Luisant comme ces trous o<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&ugrave;</FONT>
I' eau dart dans la nuit;</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3><I>lis ant les yeux divins de la petite fille. <FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT></I>.
. .</FONT></P>
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</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>It
is not merely by addressing the be1oved as your goddess that you can
attain this mysticism; the Elizabethan did that in merry abundance,
<I>ad nauseam. </I>A finer temper, a more delicate touch, a more
subtle sensitiveness and a kind of artistic wizardry are necessary to
tune the body into a rhythm of the spirit. The other line of
mysticism is common enough, viz., to express the spirit in terms and
rhythms of the flesh. Tagore did that liberally, the Vaishnava poets
did nothing but that, the Song of Solomon is an exquisite example of
that procedure. There is here, however, a difference in degrees which
is an interesting feature worth noting. Thus in Tagore the reference
to the spirit is evident, that is the major or central chord; the
earthly and the sensuous are meant as the name</FONT></P>
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</P>
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<FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;&sup1;</FONT> Mallarme:
&quot;Les Fleurs&quot;.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>&quot;Vermilion like the pure toe of the seraph</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:0.24cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Reddened by the blush of dawns it trampled through.&quot;</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:0.24cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT>&quot;Quite broken
they are, yet they have eyes that pierce like a drill, shine like
those holes in which the water sleeps at night: they have the divine
eyes of a little girl.&quot;-Baude1aire, &quot;Les petites vieilles&quot;</FONT><BR>
		</P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 66</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>and
form, as the body to render concrete, living and vibrant, near and
intimate what otherwise would perhaps be vague and abstract, afar,
aloof. But this mundane or human appearance has a value in so far as
it is a support, a pointer or symbol of the spiritual import. And the
mysticism lies precisely in the play of the two, a hide-and-seek
between them. On the other hand, as I said, the greater portion of
Vaishnava poetry, like a precious and beautiful casket, no doubt,
hides the spiritual import: not the pure significance but the sign
and symbol are luxuriously elaborated, they are placed in the
foreground in all magnificence: as if it was their very purpose to
conceal the real meaning. When the Vaishnava poet says, </FONT>
</P>
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</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>	O
love, what more shall I, shall Radha speak,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>			Since
mortal words are weak?</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>			In
life, in death,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>		In
being and in breath</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>	No
other lord but thee can Radha seek.!</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>there
is nothing in the matter or manner which can indicate, to the
uninitiated, any reference to the Spirit or the Divine. Or this
again,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>	I
have gazed upon beauty from my very birth</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>			and
yet my eyes</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>	are
not satiated; I have rested bosom upon bosom</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>		for
thousands</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>	of
aeons and yet my heart is not soothed.. . .</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>they
all give a very beautiful, a very poignant experience of love, but
one does not know if it is love human or divine, if it is soul's love
or mere bodily love.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.32cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>The famous Song of Solomon too is not on a different
footing, when the poet cries:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.32cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>	Thou
hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse;</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>		thou
hast</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>				ravished
my heart with one of thine eyes, with</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>				one
chain of thy neck.. . .</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2>Sri
Aurobindo: &quot;Radha's Appeal&quot; in <I>Songs to Myrtilla.</I></FONT><BR>
		</P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 67</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="font-style:normal; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>one can explain that it is the Christ calling the Church
or God appealing to the human soul or one can simply find in it
nothing more than a man pining for his woman. Anyhow I would not call
it spiritual poetry or even mystic poetry. For in itself it does not
carry any double or oblique meaning, there is no suggestion that it
is applicable to other fields or domains of consciousness: it is, as
it were, monovalent. An allegory is never mysticism. There is more
mysticism in Wordsworth, even in Shelley and Keats, than in Spenser,
for example, who stands in this respect on the same ground as Bunyan
in his The Pilgrim's Progress. Take Wordsworth as a
Nature-worshipper,</FONT></P>
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<BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="font-style:normal; margin-left:1.96cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Breaking the silence of the seas</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="font-style:normal; margin-left:1.96cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Among the farthest Hebrides.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.96cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>or
Wordsworth the Pagan,</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 2</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>I
do not know if this is not mysticism, what else is. Neither is
religious poetry true mysticism (or true spirituality). I find more
mysticism in</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="text-indent:2.14cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Come, let us run</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>	And
give the world a girdle with the sun!<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup3;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:-0.03cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>than in this pious morning hymn,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Heaven is, dear Lord! where'er Thou art,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>O never then from me depart !<FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">4</FONT></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>I am anticipating however, I shall come to the point
presently again. I was speaking of spiritual poetry. Listen once more
to these simple, transparent, yet vibrant lines:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>But how shall body not seem a hollow space</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>When the soul bears eternity's embrace?<sup><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">5</FONT></sup></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT>
&quot;The Solitary Reaper&quot;.</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT>
&quot;The World is too much with us&quot;...</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup3;</FONT>
John Hall: &quot;To his Tutor&quot;.</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">4</FONT>Ken:
&quot;A Morning Hymn&quot;.</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">5</FONT>
K. D. Sethna: &quot;Deluge&quot; in <I>The <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow">Secret
</FONT>Splendour.</I></FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; font-style:normal; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 68</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="font-style:normal; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>or these again equally fraught with an intense
experience a quiet in – gathered luminous consciousness:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="font-style:normal; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>I held my breath and from a world of din</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>			Solitarily
I sat apart</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>And felt the being vistaed into fire</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>			Of
truth which did acquire</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>			Rhythm
in the heart,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.96cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>When lo, I knew the worlds without as worlds			within.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>But
first let us go to the <I>fans <FONT FACE="Arial Narrow">et </FONT>origo,
</I>be acquainted with the very genuine article in its purity and
perfection, in its essential simplicity. I do not know of any other
ideal exemplar than the Upanishad. Thus,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>There the sun shines not and the moon has no</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>splendour and the stars are blind; there these</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>lightnings flash not, nor any earthly fire. For all</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>that is bright is but the shadow of His brightness</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>and by His shining all this shineth.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>Or
this one equally deep, luminous and revealing:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Even as one Fire hath entered into the world but</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>it shapeth itself to the form it meeteth, so there</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>is one Spirit within all creatures but it shapeth</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>itself to form and form; it is likewise outside these.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup3;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>This
is spiritual matter and spiritual manner that can never be improved
upon. This is spiritual poetry in its quintessence. I am referring
naturally here to the original and not to the translation which can
never do full justice, even at its very best, to the poetic value in
question. For apart from the individual genius of the poet, the
greatness of the language, the instrument used by the poet, is also
involved. It may well be what is comparatively easy and natural in
the language of the</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT>
Harindranath Chattopadhyaya: &quot;Blue Profound&quot; in <I>Strange
Journey.</I></FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><I><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT>
Katha Upanishad.</I></FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup3;</FONT>
Ibid.</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 69</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>gods <I>(devabhasha) </I>wouJd mean a <I>tour de force,
</I>if not altogether an impossibility, in a human language. The
Sanskrit language was moulded and fashioned in the hands of the
Rishis, that is to say, those who lived and moved and had their being
in the spiritual consciousness. The Hebrew or even the Zend does not
seem to have reached that peak, that absoluteness of the spiritual
tone which seems inherent in the Indian tongue, although those too
breathed and grew in a spiritual atmosphere. The later languages,
however, Greek or Latin or their modern descendants, have gone still
farther from the source, they are much nearer to the earth and are
suffused with the smell and effluvia of this vale of tears.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Among the ancients, strictly speaking, the later
classical Lucretius was a remarkable phenomenon. By nature he was a
poet, but his mental interest lay in metaphysical speculation, in
philosophy, and unpoetical business. He turned away from arms and
heroes, wrath and love and, like Seneca and Aurelius, gave himself up
to moralising and philosophising, delving 'into the mystery, the why
and the how and the whither of it all. He chose a dangerous subject
for his poetic inspiration and yet it cannot be said that his attempt
was a failure. Lucretius was not a religious or spiritual poet; he
was rather Marxian, – atheistic, materialistic. The dialectical
materialism of today could find in him a lot of nourishment and
support. But whatever the content, the manner has made a whole
difference. There was an idealism, a clarity of vision and an
intensity of perception, which however scientific apparently, gave
his creation a note, an accent, an atmosphere high, tense, aloof,
ascetic, at times bordering on the suprasensual. It was a high light,
a force of consciousness that at its highest pitch had the ring and
vibration of something almost spiritual. For the basic principle of
Lucretius' inspiration is a large thought-force, a tense perception,
a taut nervous reaction– it is not, of course, the identity in
being with the inner realities which is the hallmark of a spiritual
consciousness, yet it is something on the way towards that. </FONT>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>There have been other philosophical poets, a good number
of them since then – not merely rationally philosophical, as was
the vogue in the eighteenth century, but metaphysically
philosophical, that is to say, inquiring not merely into the </FONT>
<BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.39cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 70</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>phenomenal
but also into the labyrinths of the noumenal, investigating not only
what meets the senses, but also things that are behind or beyond.
Amidst the earlier efflorescence of this movement the most
outstanding philosopher poet is of</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">course
Dante, the Dante of </FONT><I>Paradiso, </I>a philosopher in the
mediaeval manner and to the extent a lesser poet, according to some.
Goethe is another, almost in the grand modern manner. Wordsworth is
full of metaphysics from the crown of his head to the tip of his toe
although his poetry, perhaps the major portion of it, had to undergo
some kind of martyrdom because of it. And Shelley, the supremely
lyric singer, has had a very rich undertone of thought-content
genuinely metaphysical. And Browning and Arnold and Hardy-indeed, if
we come to the more moderns, we have to cite the whole host of them,
none can be excepted.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>We left out the Metaphysicals, for they can be grouped
as a set apart. They are not so much metaphysical as theological,
religious. They have a brain-content stirring with theological
problems and. speculations, replete with scintillating conceits and
intricate fancies. Perhaps it is because of this philosophical
burden, this intellectual bias that the Metaphysicals went into
obscurity for about two centuries and it is precisely because of that
that they are slowly coming out to the forefront and assuming a
special value with the moderns. For the modern mind is
characteristically thoughtful, introspective – “introvertâ€ –
and philosophical; even the exact physical sciences of today are
rounded off in the end with metaphysics.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>The growth of a philosophical thought-content in poetry
has been inevitable. For man's consciousness in its evolutionary
march is driving towards a consummation which includes and
presupposes a development along that line. The <I>mot d'ordre </I>in
old-world poetry was &quot;fancy&quot;, imagination-remember the
famous lines of Shakespeare characterising a poet; in modern times it
is Thought, even or perhaps particularly abstract metaphysical
thought. Perceptions, experiences, realisations-of whatever order or
world they may be-expressed in sensitive and aesthetic terms and
figures, that is poetry known and appreciated familiarly. But a new
turn has been coming on with an increasing insistence-a definite time
has been given to that, since the Renaissance, it is said: it is</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.37cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 71</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>the
growing importance of Thought or brain-power as a medium or
atmosphere in which poetic experiences find a sober  and clear
articulation, a definite and strong formulation. Rationalisation of
all experiences and realisations is the keynote of the modern
mentality. Even when it is said that reason and rationality are not
ultimate or final or significant realities, that the irrational or
the submental plays a greater r<font face="Luxi Serif">o</font>le
in our consciousness and that art and poetry likewise should be the
expression of such a mentality, even then, all this is said and done
in and through a strong rational and intellectual stress and frame
the like of which cannot be found in the old-world frankly
non-intellectual creations.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>The religious, the mystic or the spiritual man was, in
the past, more or Jess methodically and absolutely non-intellectual
and anti-intellectual: but the modern age, the age of scientific
culture, is tending to make him as strongly intellectual: he has to
explain, not only present the object but show up its mechanism
also-explain to himself so that he may have a total understanding and
a firmer grasp of the thing which he presents and explains to others
as well who demand a similar approach. He feels the necessity of
explaining, giving the rationality – the rationale – the science,
of his art; for without that, it appears to him, a solid ground is
not given to the structure of his experience: analytic power,
preoccupation with methodology seems inherent in the modern creative
consciousness.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>The philosophical trend in poetry has an interesting
history with a significant role: it has acted as a force of
purification, of sublimation, of katharsis. As man has risen from his
exclusively or predominantly vital nature into :;tn increasing mental
poise, in the same way his creative activities too have taken this
new turn and status. In the earlier stages of evolution the mental
life is secondary, subordinate to the physico-vital life; it is only
subsequently that the mental finds an independent and self-sufficient
reality. A similar movement is reflected in poetic and artistic
creation too: the thinker, the philosopher remains in the background
at the outset, he looks out; peers through chinks and holes from time
to time; later he comes to the forefront, assumes a major role in
man's creative activity.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Man's consciousness is further to rise from the mental
to</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.41cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 73</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>over-mental
regions. Accordingly, his life and activities and along with that his
artistic creations too will take on a new tone and rhythm, a new
mould and constitution even. For this transition, the higher
mental-which is normally the field of philosophical and idealistic
activities-serves as the Paraclete, the Intercessor; it takes up the
lower functionings of the consciousness, which are intense in their
own way, but narrow and turbid, and gives, by purifying and
enlarging, a wider frame, a more luminous pattern, a more subtly
articulated , form for the higher, vaster and deeper realities,
truths and harmonies to express and manifest. In the old-world
spiritual and mystic poets, this intervening medium was overlooked
for evident reasons, for human reason or even intelligence is a
double-edged instrument, it can make as well as mar, it has a light
that most often and naturally shuts off other higher lights beyond
it. So it was bypassed, some kind of direct and immediate contact was
sought to be established between the normal and the transcendental.
The result was, as I have pointed out, a pure spiritual poetry, on
the one hand, as in the Upanishads, or, on the other, religious
poetry of various grades and denominations that spoke of the
spiritual but in the terms and in the manner of the mundane, at least
very much coloured and dominated by the latter. Vyasa was the great
legendary figure in India who, as is shown in his Mahabharata, seems
to have been one of the pioneers, if not the pioneer, to forge and
build the missing link of Thought Power. The exemplar of the manner
is the Gita. Valmiki's represented a more ancient and primary
inspiration, of a vast vital sensibility, something of the kind that
was at the basis of Homer's genius. In Greece it was Socrates who
initiated the movement of speculative philosophy and the emphasis of
intellectual power slowly began to find expression in the later
poets, Sophocles and Euripides. But all these were very simple
beginnings. The moderns go in for something more radical and
totalitarian. The rationalising element instead of being an
additional or subordinate or contributing factor, must itself give
its norm and form, its own substance and manner to the creative
activity. Such is the present-day demand.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>The earliest preoccupation of man was religious; even
when he concerned himself with the world and worldly things, he</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.39cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 73</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>referred
all that to the other world, thought of gods and goddesses, of
after-death and otherwhere. That also will be his last and ultimate
preoccupation though in a somewhat different way, when he has passed
through a process of purification and growth, a &quot;sea-change&quot;.
For although religion is an aspiration towards the truth and reality
beyond or behind the world, it is married too much to man's actual
worldly nature and carries always with it the shadow of profanity.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>The religious poet seeks to tone down or cover up the
mundane taint, since he does not know how to transcend it totally, in
two ways: (1) by a strong thought-element, the metaphysical way, as
it may be called and (2) by a strong symbolism, the occult way. Donne
takes to the first course, Blake the second. And it is the alchemy
brought to bear in either of these processes that transforms the
merely religious into the mystic poet. The truly spiritual, as I have
said, is still a higher grade of consciousness: what I call Spirit's
own poetry has its own matter and <SPAN STYLE="font-style: normal">manner</SPAN><I>
– swabhava </I>and <I>swadharma. </I>A nearest approach to it is
echoed in those famous lines of Blake:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.04cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.04cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>To see a World in a grain of Sand,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.04cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.04cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.04cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>And Eternity in an hour.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.45cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>And a considerable impact of it is vibrant and aglow in
these lines of a contemporary Indian poet:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Sky-lucent Bliss untouched by earthiness!</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>. . . . . . . . . . . .lean down from above,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Temper-the unborn light no thought can trace, </FONT>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Suffuse my mood with a familiar glow.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>For 'tis with mouth of clay I supplicate:</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Speak to me heart to heart words intimate,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>And all Thy formless glory turn to love</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>And mould Thy love into a human face.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT>
&quot;Auguries of Innocence&quot;.</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT>
K. D. Sethna: &quot;This Errant Life&quot; in <I>The Secret
Splentiour.</I></FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; font-style:normal; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 74</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3><I>Something
of the fullness of spiritual matter and manner overflows in these
epic lines:</I></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>His spirit mingles with eternity's heart</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>And bears the silence of the Infinite.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>In a divine retreat from mortal thought,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>In a prodigious gesture of soul-sight,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>His being towered into pathless heights,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Naked of its vesture of humanity.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>or
this simple single line pregnant no less with the self-same fullness:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>An eye awake in voiceless heights of trance,<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.35cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>This, I say, is something different from the religious
and even from the mystic. It is away from the merely religious,
because it is naked of the vesture of humanity (in spite of a human
face that masks it at times) ; it is something more than the merely
mystic, for it does not stop being a signpost or an indication to the
Beyond, but is itself the presence and embodiment of the Beyond. The
mystic gives us, we can say, the magic of the Infinite; what I term
the spiritual, the spiritual proper, gives in addition the logic of
the Infinite. At least this is what distinguishes modern spiritual
consciousness from the ancient, that is, Upanishadic spiritual
consciousness. The Upanishad gives expression to the spiritual
consciousness in its original and pristine purity and perfection, in
its essential simplicity. It did not buttress itself with any logic.
It is the record of fundamental experiences and there was no question
of any logical exposition. But, as I have said, the modern mind
requires and demands a logical element in its perceptions and
presentations. Also it must needs be a different kind of logic that
can satisfy and satisfy wholly the deeper and subtler movements of a
modern consciousness. For the philosophical poet of an earlier age,
when he had recourse to logic, it was the logic of the finite that
always gave him the frame, unless</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.35cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT>
Sri Aurobindo: <I>Savitri, </I>Book I, Canto V. </FONT>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT>
Ibid., Book I, Canto III.</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 75</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>he
threw the whole thing overboard and leaped straight into the occult,
the illogical and the a logical, like Blake, for instance. Let me
illustrate and compare a little. When the older poet explains
<I>indriyani hayan ahuh, </I>it is an allegory he resorts to, it is
the logic of the finite he marshals to point to the infinite and the
beyond. The stress of reason is apparent and effective too, but the
pattern is what we are normally familiar with – the movement, we
can say, is almost Aristotelian in its rigour. Now let us turn to the
following:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>The great World-Mother by her sacrifice</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Has made her soul the body of our state;</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Divinity's lapse from its own splendours wove</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>The many-patterned ground of all we are.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>An idol of self is our mortality.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>or
this chiselled bit of diamond,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>An inconscient Power groped towards consciousness,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Matter smitten by Matter glimmered to sense, <FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3><SPAN STYLE="font-style: normal"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Here
we have a pattern of thought-movement that does not seem to follow
the lineaments of the normal brain-mind consciousness, although it
too has a basis there: our customary line of reasoning receives a
sudden shock, as it were, and then is shaken, moved, lifted up,
transported – gradually or suddenly, according to the temperament
of the listener. Besides, we have here the peculiar </FONT></SPAN><I>modern
</I>tone, which, for want of a better term, may be described as
<I>scientific. </I>The impress – <I>imprimatur – </I><SPAN STYLE="font-style: normal">of</SPAN><I>
</I>Science is its rational coherence, justifying or justified by
sense data, by physical experience, which gives us the pattern or
model of an inexorable natural law. Here too we feel we are in the
domain of such natural law but lifted on to a higher level.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.38cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>This is what I was trying to make out as the
distinguishing trait of the real spiritual consciousness that seems
to be developing </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.38cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif" SIZE="1" style="font-size: 8pt">&sup1;</FONT><FONT SIZE=2>
Sri Aurobindo: <I>Savitri, </I>Book II, Canto I.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT>
Ibid., Book II, Canto IV.</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 76</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=3>in the poetic creation of tomorrow, e.g., it has the same
rationality, clarity, concreteness of perception as the scientific
spirit has in its own domain and still it is rounded off with a halo
of magic and miracle. That is the nature of the logic of the infinite
proper to the spiritual consciousness. We can have a Science of the
Spirit as well as a Science of Matter. This is the Thought element or
what corresponds to it, of which I was speaking, the philosophical
factor, that which gives form to the formless or definition to that
which is vague, a nearness and familiarity to that which is far and
alien. The fullness of <SPAN STYLE="font-style: normal"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">the
spiritual consciousness means such a thing, the presentation of a
divine name and form. And this distinguishes it from the mystic
consciousness which is not the supreme solar consciousness but the
nearest approach to it. Or, perhaps, the mystic dwells in the domain
of the Divine, he may even be suffused with a sense of unity but
would not like to acquire the Divine's nature and function. Normally
and generally he embodies all the aspiration and yearning moved by
intimations and suggestions belonging to the human mentality, the
divine urge retaining still the human flavour. We can say also, using
a Vedantic terminology, that the mystic consciousness gives us the
</FONT></SPAN><I>tatastha lakshana, </I>the nearest approximative
attribute of the attributeless; or otherwise, it is the <I>hiranyagarbha
</I>consciousness which englobes the multiple play, the coruscated
possibilities of the Reality: while the spiritual proper may be
considered as <I>praj<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&ntilde;Ä</FONT>ghana,
</I>the solid mass, the essential lineaments of revelatory knowledge,
the typal &quot;wave-particles&quot; of the Reality. In the former
there is a play of imagination, even of fancy, a decorative
aesthesis, while in the latter it is vision pure and simple. If the
spiritual poetry is <I>solar </I>in its nature, we can say, by
extending the analogy, that mystic poetry is characteristically
<I>lunar-Moon </I>representing the delight and the magic that Mind
and mental imagination, suffused, no doubt, with a light or a
reflection of some light from beyond, is capable of (the Upanishad
speaks of the Moon being born of the Mind).</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>To sum up and recapitulate. The evolution of the poetic
expression in man has ever been an attempt at a return and a
progressive approach to the spiritual source of poetic inspiration,
which was also the original, though somewhat veiled, source from the
very beginning. The movement has followed</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.37cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 77</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>devious
ways – strongly negative at times – even like man's life and
consciousness in general of which it is an organic member; but the
ultimate end and drift seems to have been always that ideal and
principle even when fallen on evil days and evil tongues. The poet's
ideal in the dawn of the world was, as the Vedic Rishi sang, to raise
things of beauty in heaven by his poetic power, <I>kavih  kavitv<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>
divi r<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">ū</FONT>pam <FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">Ä</FONT>sajat.
</I>Even a Satanic poet, the inaugurator, in a way, of modernism and
modernistic consciousness, Charles Baudelaire, thus admonishes his
spirit:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; margin-left:0.95cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>&quot;Flyaway, far from these morbid miasmas, go and
purify yourself in the higher air and drink, like a pure and divine
liquor, the clear fire that fills the limpid spaces.&quot;<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>That angelic poets should be inspired by the same ideal
is, of course, quite natural: for they sing:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Not a senseless, tranc<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&egrave;</FONT>d
thing,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>But divine melodious truth;</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Philosophic numbers smooth;</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>since
they</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.04cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Have ye souls in heaven too,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.04cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Double-lived in regions new?<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Poetry, actually however, has been, by and large, a
profane and mundane affair: for it expresses the normal man's
perceptions and feelings and experiences, human loves and hates and
desires and ambitions. True. And yet there has also always been an
attempt, a tendency to deal with them in such a way as can bring calm
and <I>purity – katharsis – not </I>trouble and confusion. That
has been the purpose of all Art from the ancient</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="text-indent:-0.13cm; margin-left:0.24cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1; </FONT>Envole-toi bien
loin de ces miasmes morbides;</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="text-indent:-0.13cm; margin-left:0.24cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>	Va te purifier dans l'air sup<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&eacute;</FONT>rieur,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="text-indent:-0.13cm; margin-left:0.24cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>  Et bois, comme tine pure et divine liqueur,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="text-indent:-0.13cm; margin-left:0.24cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>	Le feu clair qui remplit les espaces Iimpides.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="text-indent:-0.13cm; margin-left:0.24cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>	&quot;El<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&eacute;</FONT>vation&quot;
pleen <I>et Id<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&eacute;</FONT>al.</I></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="text-indent:-0.13cm; margin-left:0.24cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT> Keats: &quot;Ode
on the Poets&quot;.</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 78</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>days.
Besides, there has been a growth and development in the historic
process of this katharsis. As by the sublimation of his bodily and
vital instincts and impulses.., man is gradually growing into the
mental, moral and finally spiritual consciousness, even so the
artistic expression of his creative activity has followed a similar
line of transformation. The first and original transformation
happened with religious poetry. The religious, one may say, is the
profane inside out; that is to say, the religious man has almost the
same tone and temper, the same urges and passions, only turned
Godward. Religious poetry too marks a new turn and development of
human speech, in taking the name of God human tongue acquires a new
plasticity and flavour that transform or give a new modulation even
to things profane and mundane it speaks of. Religious means at bottom
the colouring of mental and moral idealism. A parallel process of
katharsis is found in another class of poetic creation, viz., the
allegory. Allegory or parable is the stage when the higher and inner
realities are expressed wholly in the modes and manner, in the form
and character of the normal and external, when moral, religious or
spiritual truths are expressed in the terms and figures of the
profane life. The higher or the inner ideal is like a loose clothing
upon the ordinary consciousness, it does not fit closely or fuse. In
the religious, however, the first step is taken for a mingling and
fusion. The mystic is the beginning of a real fusion and a
considerable ascension of the lower into the higher. The philosopher
poet follows another line for the same katharsis – instead of
uplifting emotions and sensibility, he proceeds by thought-power, by
the ideas and principles that lie behind all movements and give a
pattern to all things existing. The mystic can be of either type, the
religious mystic or the philosopher mystic, although often the two
are welded together and cannot be very well separated. Let us
illustrate a little:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">&nbsp;</P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>The spacious firmament on high,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>With all the blue ethereal sky,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>And spangled heavens, a shining frame,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Their great Original proclaim.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
&nbsp;</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=3>This is religious poetry, pure and simple, expressing
man's</FONT></P>
		<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
&nbsp;</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=2 style="font-size: 8pt"><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT>
Addison: &quot;Hymn&quot;:</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 79</FONT><BR>
		</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<FONT SIZE=3>earliest and most elementary feeling, marked by a broad
candour, a rather shallow monotone. But that feeling is raised to a
pitch of fervour and scintillating sensibility in Vaughan's</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>	They
are all gone into the world of light</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>			And
I alone sit lingering here, . . .</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>		O
Father of eternal life, and all</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>			Created
glories under Thee,</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>		Resume
Thy spirit from this world of thrall</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>			Into
true liberty.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>The
same religious spirit seems to climb a little higher still.
stretching towards the mystic vein in Donne,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">&nbsp;</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.46cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>My heart is by dejection, clay,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.49cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>And by self-murder, red.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>From this red earth, 0 Father, purge away</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>All vicious tinctures, that new fashioned</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>I may rise up from death, before ram dead.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>The
allegorical element too finds here cleverly woven into the mystically
religious texture. Here is another example of the mystically
religious temper from Donne:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.04cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>For though through many streights, and lands I roame,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.04cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>I launch at paradise, and saile towards home,<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup3;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>The
same poet is at once religious and mystic f1.nd philosophical in
these lines, for example:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>That All, which always is All every where,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Which cannot sinne, and yet all sinnes must beare,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Which cannot die, yet cannot chuse but die,</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Loe, faithfull Virgin,.. . .</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Whom thou conceiv'st, conceiv'd; yea thou art now</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother;</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT>
&quot;They Are All Gone&quot;.</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><SPAN STYLE="font-style: normal"><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">&quot;The
</FONT></SPAN><I>Litanie&quot;-Divine Poems. </I></FONT>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><I><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup3;</FONT>
The Progress of the Soule, </I>VI.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 80</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Thou 'hast light in darke; and shutst in little roome,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3><I>Immensity cloystered in thy deare wombe.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT></I></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>Blake's
powerfully pregnant lines are mystically philosophic:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in
an hour.<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:-0.03cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Blake had this wonderful gift of transmuting the baser
metal of mundane experience into the gold of a deep mystic and
spiritual experience:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:-0.15cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<BR>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>	Bring
me my bow of burning gold!</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>			Bring
me my arrows of desire!</FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>		Bring
me my spear! 0 clouds, unfold!</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>			Bring
me my chariot of fire!<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup3;</FONT></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>An
allegorical structure has been transfused into a living and  burning
symbolism of an inner world.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.48cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>But all that is left far behind, when we hear a new
voice announcing an altogether new manner, revelatory of the truly
and supremely spiritual consciousness, not simply mystic or religious
but magically occult and carved out of the highest if recondite
<I>philosophia:</I></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>A finite movement of the Infinite</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Came winging its way through a wide air of Time;</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>A march of Knowledge moved in Nescience</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-left:2.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2><FONT SIZE=3>And guarded in the form a separate soul.</FONT>
<sup>
<FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">4</FONT></sup></FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><BR>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup1;</FONT>
&quot;Annvnciation&quot;-Divine <I>Poems.</I></FONT></P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT>
&quot;Auguries of Innocence&quot;. </FONT>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup3;</FONT>
&quot;Jerusalem&quot;. </FONT>
</P>
<P style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=2><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 6pt">4</FONT>Sri
Aurobindo: <I>Sauitri, </I>Book II, Canto IV. </FONT><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 81</FONT></P>
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