The Life Heavens

Notes on the metres of the poems and their significance drawn from the letters of Sri Aurobindo

The Life Heavens

Further modulations have been introduced in this poem—a greater use is made of tetra syllabic feet such as paeons, epitrites,di-iambs, double trochees, ionics and, once only, the antispast—and in a few places the foot of three long syllables (molossus) has been used, and in others a foot extending to five syllables (e.g., Dĕlīvĕred frŏm grīef).

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There were two places in which at the time of writing there did not seem to me to be a satisfactory completeness and the addition of a stanza seemed to be called for—one at the end of the description of the Life Heavens, a stanza which would be a closing global description of the essence of the vital Heavens, the other (less imperatively called for) in the utterance of the Voice. There it is no doubt very condensed, but it cannot be otherwise. I thought, however, that one stanza might be added hinting rather than stating the connection between the two extremes. The connection is between the Divine suppressed in its opposites and the Divine eternal in its own unveiled and undescended nature. The idea is that the other worlds are not evolutionary but typal and each presents in a limited perfection some aspect of the Infinite, but each complete, perfectly satisfied in itself, not asking or aspiring for anything else, for self-exceeding of any kind. That aspiration, on the contrary, is self-imposed on the imperfection of Earth; the very fact of the Divine being there, but suppressed in its phenomenal opposites, compels an effort to arrive at the unveiled Divine—by ascent, but also by a descent of the Divine Perfection for evolutionary manifestation here. That is why the Earth declares itself a deeper Power than Heaven because it holds in itself that possibility implied in the presence of the suppressed Divine here,—which does not exist in the perfection of the vital (or even the mental) Heavens.

CWSA > Collected Poems > Six Poems (1934) - Note

On Some Words in The Life Heavens

The "last finite" is the material finite where finiteness reaches its acme (based on the atomic infinitesimal). It is this finite that on earth yearns and strives to reach the last (highest, farthest) infinity's Unknown.

By the way in the last line "bore" does not mean "carried" but "endured". I had written originally "through seas of light to epiphanies of love". The epiphanies of love are above the seas of light and part of the goal reached.

1933

Tagore and The Life Heavens

The other day Prithwi Singh said that Tagore has said your Life Heavens was not poetry proper.

I am very much intrigued by Tagore's dictum. I am always ready to admit and profit by criticism of my poetry however adverse, if it is justified—but I should like to understand it first. Why is it not poetry proper? Is it because it is not good poetry—the images, language are unpoetic or not sufficiently poetic, the rhythm harsh or flat? Or is it because it is too intellectual, dealing in ideas more than in vision and feelings? Or is it that the spiritual genre is illegitimate—spiritual subjects not proper for poetic treatment? But in that case much of Tagore's poetry would be improper, not to speak of much of Donne (now considered a great poet), Vaughan, Crashaw etc., Francis Thompson and I do not know how many others in all climes and ages. Is it the dealing with other worlds that makes it not proper? But what then about Blake, whose work Housman declares to be the essence of poetry? I am at sea about this "poetry proper". Did he only use this cryptic expression? Was there nothing elucidatory said which would make it intelligible? Or has Tagore by any chance thought that I was trying to convey a moral lesson or a philosophical tenet—there is nothing of the kind there, it is a frequent experience on the spiritual path that is being described in its own proper, one might almost say, objective figures—and that is surely a method of poetry proper. Or is it that the expression is too bad or clear-cut for the soft rondures of poetry proper. I swim helplessly in conjectures.

1934

In regard to Tagore, I understand from Prithwi Singh that his objections to The Life Heavens were personal rather than in principle—that is, he himself had no such experience and could not take them as true (for himself), so they aroused in him no emotion, while Shiva was just the contrary. I can't say anything to that, as I could not say anything if somebody condemned a poem of mine root and branch because he did not like it or on good grounds—such as Cousins' objection to the inferiority of the greater part of In the Moonlight to the opening stanzas. I learned a great deal from that objection; it pointed me the way I had to go towards the Future Poetry. Not that I did not know before, but it gave precision and point to my previous perception. But still I don't quite understand Tagore's objection. I myself do not take many things as true in poetry—e.g. Dante's Hell etc.—of which I yet feel the emotion. It is surely part of the power of poetry to open new worlds to us as well as to give a supreme voice to our own ideas, experiences and feelings. The Life Heavens may not do that for its readers, but, if so, it is a fault of execution, not of principle.

4 October 1934

Letters on Poetry and Art > On Some Poems Written during the 1930s

How to read the color-coded changes below? 1. SABCL version : lines with any changes & specific changes 2. CWSA version : lines with any changes & specific changes

NOTES FROM EDITOR

15 November 1933. There are four handwritten and three typed manuscripts. The typed manuscripts are dated “15.11.33”.