Renewal

A poem by Sri Aurobindo


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The Future Poetry > On Quantitative Metre



Lines 1, 3, two ionics a minore with a final amphibrach,

Image 44

Lines 2, 4, choriamb, paeon, antibacchius (or sometimes bacchius or amphibrach),

Image 45

The Future Poetry > Renewal

Renewal

When the heart tires and the throb stills recalling
    Things that were once and again can be never,
When the bow falls and the drawn string is broken,
    Hands that were clasped, yet for ever are parted,

When the soul passes to new births and bodies,
    Lands never seen and meetings with new faces,
Is the bow raised and the fall'n arrow fitted,
    Acts that were vain rewedded to the Fate-curve?

To the lives sundered can Time bring rejoining,
    Love that was slain be reborn with the body?
In the mind null, from the heart's chords rejected,
    Lost to the sense, but the spirit remembers!



Part VII : Pondicherry (Circa 1927-1947) > Poems Published in On Quantitative Metre   



NOTES FROM EDITOR

  1. A single handwritten manuscript precedes the On Quantitative Metre revision work.