Overhead Poetry

Night of Trance

Closing your eyes, outstretch vague hands of prayer

Beyond the prison-house of mortal air...

Then, soul-awakened, watch the universe thrill

With secrets drawn from the Invisible—

A force of gloom that makes each flicker-stress

Bare the full body of its goldenness

And yield in that embrace of mystery

A flaming focus of infinity,

A fire-tongue nourished by God's whole expanse

Through darknesses of superhuman trance.

Sri Aurobindo's Comment

"Lines five to eight (marked double) are from the Illumined Mind touched with the Intuition—the rest seem to be mainly from the Higher Mind, except that the last two [marked double] have a force of Illumination also. Perhaps the sustained intensity is less than that of your very best poems: that does not mean that it is a semi-success—it is a difference of shade rather than of category."

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