Overhead Poetry

Appeal

My feet are sore, Beloved,

With agelong quest for Thee;

Wilt Thou not choose for dwelling

This lonesome heart of me?

Is it too poor a mansion?

But surely it is poor

Because Thou never bringest

Thy beauty through its door!

It lies all bare and darkened,

To hold nought save Thy light:

The door is shut because, Love,

It craves no lesser sight.

Though void, a fulness richens

The heart I give to Thee—

For, what more can I offer

Than all my penury?

(Anything special in this lyric? Is not the language too commonplace and the rhythm too hackneyed?)

"I like it very well. A rhythm or language can never be hackneyed or commonplace when it is beautiful and makes a direct inner appeal."

Considering that Sri Aurobindo, in a letter, describes "all psychic things" as "direct and simple" and psychic poetry as "simple and precise and penetrating" or "something deeply inward, esoteric in that sense, but simple, unveiled and clear, not esoteric in the more usual sense", the above lines may be taken to be a psychic poem.

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