Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

NOTES
(From Letters of the Author)
THE BIRD OF FIRE —TRANCE
These two poems are in the nature of metrical experiments. The
first is a kind of compromise between the stress system and the
foot measure. The stanza is of four lines, alternately of twelve
and ten stresses. The second and fourth line in each stanza can
be read as a ten-foot line of mixed iambs and anapaests, the first
and third, though a similar system subject to replacement of a
foot anywhere by a single-syllable half-foot could be applied,
are still mainly readable by stresses.
The other poem is an experiment in the use of quantitative
foot measures not following any existing model, but freely
invented. It is a four-line stanza reading alternately
⌣ ⌣ | ⌣ ⌣ | ⌣ |
⌣ | ⌣ |
and ⌣ | ⌣ ⌣ | ⌣⌣ |
It could indeed be read otherwise, in several ways, but read
in the ordinary way of accentual feet it would lose all lyrical
quality and the soul of its rhythm.
The Bird of Fire is the living vehicle of the gold fire of the
Divine Light and the white fire of the Divine Tapas and the
crimson fire of Divine Love — and everything else of the Divine
Consciousness.
SHIVA — The Inconscient Creator
The quantitative metre of Trance is suited only for a very brief
lyrical poem. For longer poems I have sought to use it as a base
but to liberate it by the introduction of an ample number of
modulations which allow a fairly free variation of the rhythm
without destroying the consistency of the underlying rhythmic
measure. This is achieved in Shiva by allowing as the main modulations
(1) a paeon anywhere in place of an amphibrach, (2) the