Collected Poems - Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Note on the Texts 703
An Image. Circa 1909. Published in the Karmayogin on 20 November
1909. (This was the third poem by Sri Aurobindo that he published in
the Karmayogin. The first two, “Invitation” and “Who”, were included
in Ahana and Other Poems in 1915, and so are included in Part Three
of the present volume.) “An Image”, Sri Aurobindo’s first published
lines in quantitative hexameters, may be related in some way to Ilion,
his epic poem in that metre, which he began to write in Alipore Jail
(see below, Part Five).
The Birth of Sin. Circa 1909. Published in the Karmayogin on 11
December 1909. A fragmentary draft of a related piece is found in one
of Sri Aurobindo’s notebooks in handwriting of the 1909 – 10 period.
That piece, which is more in the nature of a play than a poem, is
published in Collected Plays and Stories, volume 4 of THE COMPLETE
WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO.
Epiphany. Circa 1909. Published in the Karmayogin on 18 December
1909. Around 1913, Sri Aurobindo copied the Karmayogin text into
a notebook, making a few deliberate changes as he did so. Later he
revised the opening and close of this version. Three decades later,
when Collected Poems and Plays was being compiled, the editors,
not knowing about the 1913 version, sent the Karmayogin text to Sri
Aurobindo, who made a few revisions to it. This version was used in
Collected Poems and Plays (1942) and reproduced in Collected Poems
in 1972. The editors of the present volume have selected the more
extensively revised version of 1913 for the text reproduced here. The
1942 version is reproduced in the Reference Volume.
To R. 1909. Published in the Modern Review in April 1910 under the
title “To R — ” and dated 19 July 1909. “R” stands for Ratna, which
was the pet name of Sri Aurobindo’s cousin Kumudini Mitra, who was
born on 3 Sraban 1289 (18 July 1882). In the Modern Review, the
poem was signed “Auro Dada” (big brother Auro).
Transiit, Non Periit. 1909 or earlier. This sonnet to Rajnarain Bose,
Sri Aurobindo’s maternal grandfather and a well-known writer and
speaker, was first published at the beginning of Atmacharit,Rajnarain’s
memoirs, in 1909. As mentioned in the note beneath the title, Rajnarain
died in September 1899. Sri Aurobindo may have written the poem
anytime between 1899 and 1909; but since there are no drafts among
his Baroda manuscripts, and since the poem belongs stylistically with