Overhead Poetry

6

Time-Telescope

"How can thy reverie's molecule of sight

Pierce the lone reaches of the starred Obscure?

Mix with my largening thought whose deep and pure

Quiet brings close the eternal harmonies!

Across my length of vigil, nectars move:

I am a crystal medium of far light,

Through whom the unattainable galaxies

Glow with a luminous Mother's intimate love!"

Sri Aurobindo's Comment

(Does my consistent sustaining of the telescope image throughout by expressions like "largening thought", "brings close", "length of vigil", "crystal medium of far light", etc., put the poem in the class of what might be called "inspired conceit" ?)

"No, I don't suppose it does—the turn has not that obvious ingenious cleverness which is the stamp of the conceit. The poem is a fine one—mental with a sort of reflection of the overhead manner; but it has not the overhead grip."

(What exactly is the mental process which would define "conceit" in poetry ?)

"When an image comes out of the mind not properly transmuted in the inner vision or delivered by the alchemy of language, it betrays itself as coin of the fancy or the conceiving intellect and is then called a conceit."

(Would you describe the following poem of mine as "coin of the fancy" ? What is the peculiarity of poetic effect, if any, here ?)

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